


Only Living Boys in New York

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: Story of Three Boys [41]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2012-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-29 06:45:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 38,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Swiss. Life is like a musical. A preview of the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Teaser

Carole hums to herself as she mashes the yolks in a bowl. Dr. Lee suggested she look at the website, after all, and it said that eggs were excellent in pregnancy. Carole thinks she probably needs every advantage she can get, since she’s already forty. Forty! She shakes her head, absently adding to the yolk mixture. Two dozen deviled eggs will last a few days, at least, and she’ll put her own into a separate container where maybe the boys won’t devour them.

Carole has to admit that another source of estrogen, as opposed to testosterone, would be nice.

When she looks up, Finn is wandering through the door into the kitchen, looking perplexed. If Carole didn’t know better, she’d say Finn was wondering how he got into the house, much less the kitchen specifically. “Hi, sweetie.”

“Oh, hey mom,” Finn says, sounding a little vague, perhaps sleepy or disoriented. “That’s a lot of eggs.”

“I thought that if I made this many, you three might leave enough for me to take a few for lunch on Monday.”

“But it’s not Easter,” he answers, looking even more confused. “You only make deviled eggs for Easter.”

“Oh, well, isn’t that silly?” Carole laughs a little anxiously. “I just thought it was, um. A good lunch food.” She smiles, and maybe it’s a little overly bright, but there’s no need to worry Finn yet, especially after he just broke up with his girlfriend of nine months. Nine months this time, anyway.

“Eggs are good,” Finn shrugs. “We all think I should eat extra animal products right now anyway, ’cause it might make me feel better.”

Carole tries not to laugh, but a stray giggle escapes. “That’s particularly inventive, Finn.”

“Kurt says it’s ‘spite–motivated carnivorism’ or something,” Finn explains. “I think it’s helping. I feel way better today than yesterday.”

Carole raises her eyebrow slightly at the odd look on Finn’s face—she can’t quite place, and she can place most of Finn’s looks—but doesn’t say anything about it. “Well, that’s good. I know you’ll find someone else soon, Finn. Someone even better for you, maybe even a girl who likes a nice hamburger! Hand me that plate of egg halves and you can have a few deviled eggs right now, if you like.”

“I like,” he says, handing her the plate of eggs. “Maybe I’ll hide some of them, so there’s some to eat tomorrow.” He looks thoughtful for a moment. “Only, I’m the one most likely to eat them, so I’d need to hide them from myself. Maybe you should hide them from me instead.”

“All right,” Carole replies, amused. “So you are feeling better today, sweetie?” she asks, softening her voice a little.

Finn flushes a little. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I was feeling pretty low yesterday, but.” Finn freezes momentarily, like he’s unsure how to continue, and the odd look is back on his face.

“So it helped to spend time with Puck and Kurt? It was very thoughtful of them,” Carole says, wondering if Finn’s embarrassed about having needed the male equivalent of girl talk and ice cream.

Finn make a sound like he used to when he was a preschooler and took too big a bite, like halfway between a choke and a cough. “Yes,” he sputters. “Very thoughtful.”

“Are you okay?” Carole rushes over to the refrigerator. “How are your lungs doing? Here, have some orange juice.”

“I’m fine, mom,” Finn coughs. “Really. Fine. It’s cool. Everything’s cool.”

“Are you sure?” Carole frets, because she’s just not sure how Finn’s body is going to handle so much stress. “All of this on top of your infection.”

“I’m better, see?” Finn insists, straightening up and plastering on a big grin. “Fine! Everything’s fine. My lungs are _fine_. I’m fine.”

“Well, don’t forget you have a follow-up appointment after school on Tuesday.” Carole shakes her head, filling more egg white halves with the deviled egg mixture. “I know you don’t want to chance having any lingering effects for your Regionals competition.”

“Yeah, don’t want that,” Finn mumbles. “I won’t forget. I’ll write myself a note or put it in my phone or whatever, ok?”

“Good, good.” Carole smiles at him. “And speaking of school. Any trouble with assignments from the days you missed?”

“I’ve gotta make up everything I missed in trig, but nobody else really seems to care,” Finn says, “so that’s good, at least.”

“Oh, that is good. Well, maybe you’ll need trig in your college math courses or something.” Carole shrugs and takes a bite of a deviled egg, closing her eyes. “Oh, that is _so_ good. Isn’t that good? I can’t believe how good this tastes.”

“Uh, yeah, mom,” Finn says, looking at her askance. “They’re really good. Thanks for the eggs. I’m gonna go back upstairs and, um. Do… things.”

“Oh, okay, sweetie. Don’t forget that…” Carole frowns. “I don’t remember, actually. Something that I was supposed to remind you, you wanted to watch on television.”

“Basketball. Thanks, mom. I won’t forget.”

“Right!” Carole smiles. “Okay. I may head out to the grocery store later, you want more Ben and Jerry’s?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely!” Finn sounds almost back to his enthusiastic self at the mention of ice cream. “You should get some more Brownie Batter and Blackberry Cobbler, too, though. For Puck and Kurt, because, you know. They like those ones.”

“Oh, right, yes,” Carole nods, scribbling it down on the shopping list. “Thanks, Finn!”

“Yeah, well,” Finn says, with an elaborately overly–casual shrug. “They’ve just been, like, looking out for me, you know?”


	2. Monkey Backpack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PFLAG Secret Service and a perfectly-oiled machine of ~~baby~~ Casey-sitting

Finn’s checked in with everyone a few times throughout the day through text or cornering them in the hallway, and he feels pretty good about the shifts once Karofsky leaves for dual enrollment. Britt has detailed instructions on escorting Casey to his fifth period class, Finn’s snagging him after fifth and getting him to sixth, and Rickenbacker is in seventh period with him and will hang out until Karofsky gets back to campus to pick him up.

It’s a perfectly oiled machine of Casey–sitting and Finn’s pretty proud of it. Casey might be less than impressed by the whole situation, but Karofsky sounded so enthusiastic about it that he almost got choked up, so Finn figures Casey probably won’t mind _too_ much if he figures that part out.

Come lunch time, Finn guesses he’d better check in with Karofsky, make sure he’s got all the final details and that everybody knows where everybody’s supposed to be and at what time. No real shock, Karofsky and Casey are sitting at their usual table, but instead of one or two other people sitting with them, they’re kind of swamped with people. All Finn can see of Casey is the top of his hair, because he’s got Karofsky guard–dogging on one side of him, Brittany on the other, almost draping herself across his shoulders, Santana and Brown sitting across from him, looking at each other a little askance, and Rickenbacker hovering next to Brown like he’s ready to jump if Santana makes so much as a move in his direction. It’s either cute or disconcerting; Finn can’t quite decide which.

Karofsky makes brief eye contact with Finn and nods his head slightly to the side before he says something to the rest of them at the table and standing up. Finn walks in the direction Karofsky nodded and Karofsky slowly makes his way over, darting his eyes back in Casey’s direction every few steps, like he’s not sure Casey’s still gonna be there the next time he checks. Karofsky looks bone-tired, like dead–on–his–feet tired, and has that pinched look around his eyes that Finn’s seen on Puck a bunch of times and usually means he’s thinking about puking. Finn _really_ hopes Karofsky isn’t thinking about puking.

“Hudson,” Karofsky says quietly with a nod, angling his body so that he can still see Casey, probably.

“Hey, Karofsky,” Finn says, glancing over at Casey. Kid looks _rough_ , though maybe not quite as bad as Finn expected. His face is still a mess of bruises, especially around one of his eyes, but he also looks a little more filled–out than Finn remembers. The Karofskys probably feed people pretty well, so that might be it, though Finn suspects it might have just as much to do with Karofsky as with the food. “So, dumb to ask how you guys are doing?”

Karofsky raises one shoulder, like he’s trying to shrug but can’t bother to make both shoulders move. “I think getting out on Saturday really helped, even though he had a rough morning yesterday, you know? Getting out of this town, maybe that was better than coming back here, I don’t know.”

“Where’d you guys go on Saturday?” Finn asks.

“Oh, the community center down in Dayton. Brown came with us.”

“Oh that was probably, wait, what?” Finn narrows his eyes a little. “The center–center. In Dayton.”

“Yeah, I forget the full name of it,” Karofsky continues casually, nodding. “Downtown Dayton.”

“The _gay_ center,” Finn says, dropping his voice. “We’re talking about the same place, right?”

“Yeah…” Karofsky says slowly, then nods. “Ohh. Right. Yeah. Same place.”

“Did you guys, um?” Finn searches for a way to ask without telling. “You know. See anybody that you know?”

Karofsky nods slowly. “PFLAG rules, right?”

“Just so we’re on the same page. Brown’s on that page, too, right?”

“Yeah.” Karofsky snorts. “Your brother’s kind of scary sometimes, you know that, right?”

“Nah, he’s really not that… well, ok, yeah, he is, but I love him anyway,” Finn says, with a shrug. “He’s just, like, protective or whatever. Everybody follows the rules, everybody’s gonna be cool.” Finn watches Karofsky’s eyes slide back over to Casey. “Speaking of protective, are _you_ ok, dude?”

“Me? Yeah.” Karofsky shrugs. “You know. Just catching up. And stuff,” he adds, making some hand motion that seems to mean everything, all the stuff that’s happened, or maybe just the whole Casey–sitting thing specifically. It’s hard to tell, Karofsky not exactly being the most emotive guy ever. Either way, it doesn’t make him look any less tired or less worried or less like he’s prepared to go flying across the lunch room and tackle somebody who walks closer than three feet behind Casey.

“Yeah. Stuff,” Finn nods. “Hey, you know we’re gonna take care of him. It’s just a few class periods.”

“Yeah. Of course.” Karofsky nods as well, not quite meeting Finn’s eyes, cutting his gaze towards Casey and then the tiles under his feet.

“You want me to have them check in after they get him to class? I can text you,” Finn offers.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Karofsky shrugs, attempting to be casual about it. “That’d be cool.”

“Just so, you know, if anybody notices anything, is all. Or he needs something.”

“Right, right. I could totally pick it up on my way back, or whatever.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Finn nods. “What time you think you’ll be back? I’ll make sure Rickenbacker knows.”

“Oh, probably by the final bell, or close enough. Unless traffic’s bad on Harding.”

“If you get held up, let me know, and I’ll stick around. Rickenbacker’s turning out to be an ok kid and all, but,” Finn shrugs. “You know. Doesn’t hurt.”

“Yeah, okay, thanks,” Karofsky nods his agreement. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem, dude. Seriously. I totally get it.” Finn glances back at the table. “Am I allowed to go tell him hey?” he jokes. “Or is he already maxed out on visitors for the day?”

“Santana alone would max anyone out on visitors,” Karofsky points out, even as he’s nodding his agreement.

“Cool,” Finn says. “We’re gonna be so stealth, he won’t even know we’re looking after him.”

Karofksy cracks a small grin. “Secret PFLAG agents, huh?”

“Hey, everybody needs a hobby, dude.”

“I guess there are worse ones.” Karofsky shrugs. “Uh, heard about you and Berry. Go have a burger?”

“See? Men understand these things. Break up with a vegan? The answer is meat.”

“The answer to most stuff is food. A burger’s just some of the best food,” Karofsky offers, smiling slightly.

“That why Casey’s looking a little less like a strong wind’s gonna blow him away?” Finn asks. “Solution: food?”

“Pretty much,” Karofsky agrees. “Still thinking about ankle weights, though.”

“Well, March starts tomorrow and it does get pretty windy. Ooh, you could tether him to something. Maybe one of those monkey backpack things like Puck’s mom used to have for his sister.”

Karofsky laughs. “Yeah, maybe so.”

Finn grins. “Hey, who doesn’t love a monkey?”

“Brittany, but maybe she’ll make an exception for a stuffed one.”


	3. How It Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New normal; Talking around (and sometimes about); OJ and applesauce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Covers time span from the night Casey comes home from the hospital until the following week, so overlaps "Piggly-Wiggly", "Monkey Backpack", and parts of 3x21 and 3x22.
> 
> [Playlist for "How It Is"](http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/3x22+How+It+Is+/65975995)

It isn’t his bed. Casey probably should have realized that sooner, but he really wasn’t thinking about anything past the shock of seeing his things relocated from his house to David’s. Only, of course, his house isn’t _his_ house any more. He doesn’t have a house. He’s not sure yet what David’s house is supposed to be to him. A pause? A stop-gap? A home?

It’s not his bed. It’s softer than his bed and there’s no sag in the middle where his body has slowly left an imprint over the years. The sheets are new, soft because the thread count is higher than Casey’s used to, but still crisp. The noises in the house are all wrong, the bed is all wrong, and Casey wishes, in that moment where he’s trying and failing to force himself to sleep, that he were back in the hospital, just so he could curl up with David and not feel like he’s doing anything wrong for wanting that.

Casey hurts and he feel so restless, and he’s up, out of the strange bed, and rifling through the dresser drawers frantically before he remembers that he won’t find a pack of cigarettes there, that he can’t do _that_ in David’s house anyway. Knowing that doesn’t make him feel any better, but he climbs back into the bed that’s supposed to be his now, curls up as small as possible, and squeezes his eyes closed. Eventually, finally, he falls asleep and he dreams.

 

Dave blinks, furrowing his forehead and tilting his head a little. He had thought he heard Casey earlier, but the sound stopped and the house was quiet again. Until now, anyway, because now he can hear Casey whimpering, and if tonight is like the past three nights, he’s probably not awake. Dave sighs a little and climbs out of his bed, padding down the hall to Casey’s room.

Enough of the streetlamp’s light filters in through Casey’s window for Dave to see that Casey is definitely asleep, trembling a little with the force of whatever’s happening inside his brain. Dave crosses the room and lies behind Casey, one hand on Casey’s shoulder, and Casey shudders for just a moment before falling silent. His body is still tense, and Dave puts his head down on Casey’s pillow with a yawn.

“Sleep, Case,” Dave whispers into the silence. “Just sleep, as much as you need.”

 

The drive home from the center seems twice as long as the drive there, but that could be partially due to Miles’ play–by–play of everything they saw, said, or did at the center, with special focus on everybody there he thought was hot, everybody there he thought was ugly, on how he just _knew it_ about Puck, and on the nasty looks Kurt supposedly kept giving him, which Casey didn’t notice at all.

“I thought he was very nice about it all,” Casey says. “I feel so bad.”

“Oh, naw, Kurt was _pissed_ , but only at me!” Miles laughs. “Why d’you feel bad, Cherry?”

Casey shrugs. “They didn’t want anybody else to know. Now more people know.”

“It’s a public place, more or less, Case,” David points out calmly. “I don’t think they were upset with you.”

“How long _have_ you known?” Miles asks. “I mean, I totally suspected with Puckerman, but.”

David snorts. “Sure you did, Brown.”

“Um. A while, I guess?” Casey’s not sure how much he should say. Talking about it with David would be one thing, but Miles is something completely different.

“I did!” Miles insists. “Dude comin’ in to football practice with bruises on his hips. Sitting there in PFLAG and never sayin’ why he’s there.”

“Bruises?” Casey asks. “Why did he have bruises?”

Miles laughs. “I guess you’d have to ask Kurt, but they sure looked like fingers to me!”

“Geez, Brown.” David shakes his head. “Looking closely, were you?”

“Fingers? I don’t— oh.” Casey stops abruptly, his face hot. “Nevermind.” He slides down in his seat a little, not looking back at Miles or over at David. _Definitely_ not over at David.

“Hey, he’s got a nice ass,” Miles continues, unrepentant. “I didn’t know he was like, tied down. I mean, who’d a thought that? Puckerman?”

“He must have been really different before,” Casey says. “I think him and Kurt, I dunno. It just seems right to me.”

Miles guffaws. “Yeah, you could say that, Cherry.”

“Be nice,” David says mildly. “People change.”

“They change a lot,” Casey agrees. “They have to.”

Miles makes a dismissive noise. “I don’t know about that.”

“Some people are stubborn and won’t,” David replies, arching an eyebrow at Miles.

“Some people are awesome and don’t need to,” Miles retorts.

“And then there’s the delusional folks.”

Casey giggles at them a bit, but then frowns. “Well, I just hope they aren’t too upset.”

“I don’t think they are, Case,” David states. “Really.”

“I dunno. I’d probably be,” Casey says. “Anyway, I still feel bad.”

“Aww, don’t feel bad,” Miles insists. “I gotta admit, I’m sorta impressed with them.”

“They’re really sweet together,” Casey says. “I feel happy when I see them. I don’t want them to feel weird around us now.”

“Sweet?” David echoes, then shrugs, like he’s just thought of something. “And _you_ already knew, Case.” Casey nods.

“And kept the secret good!” Miles adds. “Makes me wonder what else I’m missing.”

Casey shrugs. “PFLAG rules. Wasn’t my secret.”

“Well, good for them.” Miles shrugs. “They going the same place next year?”

David shrugs. “Dunno.”

“I hope so,” Casey says. “I think they are. It would be terrible to be far away from somebody you love.”

 

Dave pounds down the stairs while Casey’s still in the shower, determined to make sure there’s lots of food at Casey’s place _before_ Casey gets to the table, because then Case can’t protest how much he’s being served. That mission accomplished, Dave leans against the counter and drinks his coffee, listening to the water stop and the faint echo of Casey moving around upstairs before Dave can hear Casey slowly making his way down the stairs.

“Breakfast,” Dave announces cheerfully before Casey appears in the doorway.

“Maybe some coffee?” Casey says. He looks pale – well, paler than normal, anyway, his freckles standing out starkly.

“Not just coffee,” Dave insists. “Really, Case?”

Casey shrugs weakly. “Not hungry,” he says, his voice soft.

“Case.” Dave sighs, because he doesn’t know how to convince someone to eat. He can’t even understand not wanting to eat. “You know you need to eat.”

“I know,” Casey says, nudging the table leg with his bare toes. “I’m just.” He shrugs again, like the words are stuck.

“It’s not a lot,” Dave lies, because he knows that to Casey, it is a lot. It’s not a total lie; if Dave was fixing the plate for himself, he would have doubled the portions, at least.

“Okay,” Casey says, sitting down and picking up his fork. He moves the food around the plate absently, but he doesn’t actually eat any of it.

“More honey for your oatmeal?”

“It’s fine, David. Really. I’m just really not hungry.” Casey bounces his legs as he sits, like he’s got an imaginary fussy baby sitting there.

“Getting sick?” Dave asks, concerned, because really, the news is always talking about people getting more sick from being in hospitals and doctors’ offices.

“No, not sick,” Casey says. “Just trying to, I dunno. I’m, you know. About today.”

“Oh.” Dave nods. “Yeah.”

“But I need to. I should, right? I should go?”

Dave shrugs. “Well, yeah, I mean, you have to go to school. The law requires it and all.” He pauses. “But there’s no one waiting to tell you that you have to be there today.”

“I should go,” Casey insists, but he looks even paler and shakier than when he first came downstairs. “Waiting isn’t gonna make it any better.”

“It’s up to you, Case.”

“No, I’m gonna go. I _am_.”

“Okay.” Dave nods. “But you need to eat something.”

The tiny smile on Casey’s face looks like it take tremendous effort for him to make, but he does eat a few bites of his oatmeal, at least.

When Dave figures that Casey isn’t going to eat anymore, he stands up and puts his own plate and bowl in the dishwasher. “Ready?”

Casey takes a deep breath and nods his head. Dave thinks Casey might be shaking a little bit, but he’s not sure, and they grab their backpacks and walk towards the garage door. Dave’s got his hand on the door-handle when he hears a faint cry and a thump, and he turns around to see Casey just sitting on the floor, visibly trembling.

“Case?” Dave says softly.

“I _can’t_ ,” Casey breathes. Tears stream down his cheeks and he rocks back and forth a little. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m so sorry!”

“Okay. Okay,” Dave assures him, softly. “Not a big deal. You can stay here today, okay?”

“I’m so sorry, David. I tried, I _tried_.”

“It’s no problem, Case. You can stay here. No problem.”

“I wanted to go. I did.”

“I know,” Dave says. “I know, Case. Tomorrow, okay? You can try again tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Casey repeats. “I’m gonna make it there tomorrow.”

Dave nods. “Okay. Why don’t you go read the next _Dune_ book?”

“Yeah. Yes. I’ll do that. I’ll read that today, and tomorrow, school, okay?” Casey smiles at Dave. It’s a little shaky and like he doesn’t quite believe he’s smiling, but Dave returns it, helping Casey stand.

“I’ll text you between classes. At lunch,” Dave adds.

“I’ll be okay. You don’t have to do that, David.”

Dave snorts. “Never said I had to. But I will anyway.”

 

“Cherry!” Miles’ voice sounds booming, and he’s smirking, holding a plastic bag out in front of him. “Survival kit!”

Casey looks over at David to see if there’s any hint on David’s face about what exactly is going on here, but David just looks at him blankly. Just Miles being Miles, then, Casey decides, so he accepts the plastic bag and looks inside of it. Red candy and nothing but red candy: red Twizzlers, red ring pops, some red Blow Pops, and two pre-packaged red Jell-O cups.

“Oh! Um, thank you, Miles,” Casey says, fishing out a Blow Pop. “All red!”

“Brittany helped.” Miles shrugs with an easy grin. “She picked out the Jell-O especially.”

“Brittany is very nice,” Casey says, smiling back at Miles, because smiling back at Miles is just really easy to do. “Red’s my favorite. Now I have all-day candy!”

“You still have to eat lunch,” David grumbles, even though he’s not frowning.

“Jell-O is like lunch,” Casey offers.

“Jell-O is like _dessert_.”

“Dessert is the best part of lunch.”

“It’s the end of lunch. Not the entirety of lunch. Protein, Case. Vegetables.”

“I eat vegetables,” Casey says. “I eat protein. Really. I ate the egg.”

“ _An_ egg.” David shakes his head and sighs. “Seriously, guys, he thinks that’s a breakfast.”

“I ate a piece of toast, too,” Casey says. “It had butter. That’s breakfast.”

“Toast’s what you have _with_ breakfast,” Rick says, interrupting this latest round of the ‘you don’t eat enough’ argument. “He’ll eat real lunch, though, I bet. Right, Casey? You’ll eat lunch with us and then Karofsky’ll let you alone.” He pats Casey on the shoulder and Casey giggles when David shoots Rick the grumpiest look.

“What, no strawberry jelly on the toast?” Miles jokes. “I’m shocked, Cherry.”

“Jelly comes in strawberry flavor?” Casey asks, but he doesn’t do a good job of playing dumb because he starts to laugh right away. “I like red flavor.”

“Red’s a flavor?” Miles shakes his head. “Okay. If you say so.”

“Red flavor Jell-O,” Casey explains, pointing into the bag. “Red flavor ring pops. Red. It’s a flavor. It doesn’t taste like fruit. It tastes, you know. _Red_.”

“I never knew this.” Miles shrugs. “Okay. Sure. You know this, Foots?”

“Well, I don’t guess I ever thought about it or anything,” Rick says. “But, I guess he’s kinda right. It doesn’t really taste like strawberries or cherries or anything, for real.”

“See?” Casey says. “Red. Red flavor.”

“All right,” David interjects. “You said you had to get to your locker, Case.”

“I haven’t seen the inside of my locker in, oh. A while. I hope my books are there. I’m not sure where all my books are!” Casey’s backpack made it to David’s house, but he’s not entirely certain all his school stuff did. “Thank you. For, um, the candy, Miles.”

“No big!” Miles says cheerfully. “Later, guys.”

“Yeah, see you,” Rick adds.

David nods at both of them, his hand on Casey’s shoulder steering them down the hall. Casey lets himself be steered, knows he could close his eyes and he’d still get there safely without tripping or bumping into anything. Once they’re at Casey’s locker, though, Casey stares at his lock and has to mentally fumble for the numbers. They’re not _right there_ like they used to be. They’re just one more thing that he can almost bring right to mind, but then loses.

Before he can think about them any longer, though, David’s hand reaches around him and opens the locker, and David shrugs. “Guess I memorized it after watching you. Open it, I mean.”

Casey’s not exactly sure _why_ that makes him blush, but it does. “Thanks,” he mumbles, and stares at the contents of his locker. Maybe all the books are there. He thinks they might be accounted for, between the locker and the backpack. He glances over at David. “Do you, um. Remember which books?”

“Hmm?” David raises his eyebrow, looking like he’s lost in thought. “What? Oh, um.”

“Book? It’s… is it history? That’s so weird, I can’t even think of my schedule any more.” Casey shakes his head.

“Spanish,” David says softly. “Then history. English before lunch.”

“Then math,” Casey says. “Because we always walk to my math after PFLAG. I don’t know why I can’t keep the other stuff in order right now.” He shakes his head. “It just feels all mixed up.”

“It’ll come back,” David says, his voice sounding oddly strained. “Anyway, let’s get you over to Mr. Schuester’s exciting class.”

“I hope the Spanish comes back, too,” Casey says. “I don’t think I have any of that left.”

David laughs. “Most people who take Spanish don’t, either, Case.”

 

Dave waves half-heartedly at Casey’s history teacher, who for some reason always hated Dave in tenth grade, but seems to love him now. He turns back down the hall and sighs a little, frowning to himself for the thoughts that burbled up the day before and now just won’t go away.

Dave can’t get his conversation with Dr. Naser out of his head, for starters, but the image his brain can provide is – well, better than awesome. Of course, there would be consequences, lots and lots of consequences, not all of them bad, but it’s only Casey’s second day back at school and he should not be contemplating gently pushing Casey against the lockers and then kissing the fucking daylights out of him.

Even if it sounds like the best damn idea he’s had in months.

Dave waves absently to Santana as he passes her in the hall, then continues contemplating all the things he shouldn’t be doing as he enters his own second period class. He manages to put Casey in the back of his mind until partway through class, when his phone vibrates with a text from Rickenbacker.

 _KC talked in class! Doin better right?_

Dave scans the room, decides the teacher is otherwise engaged, and replies.

 _good. any1 hassle him?_

 _not in here, theyd hafta go thru me 1st_

Dave suppresses a grin at the thought of wiry Rickenbacker holding off some of the JV hockey players that he _knows_ are in Casey’s history class. Rick would give it a good try, though, and that counts for something – a lot, really.

No, what Dave has to do, more than anything, is keep himself under control. Keep his own hormones in check, because Casey doesn’t need Dave’s baggage on top of everything else. Worse, Casey doesn’t need to feel obligated to Dave in some way. Dave shakes his head and puts his phone away again. Dave has to keep everything compartmentalized. As it should be.

 

It hasn’t been a bad week, really, not nearly as hard as Casey expected. Of course, he has a personal escort to every single class and sometimes even the bathroom, and while he thinks he’s probably okay enough to _not_ need that, it really seems to make David feel a lot better. Casey also can’t deny that he’s probably had his most hassle–free week ever, though if it weren’t for David’s peace of mind, even that wouldn’t make Casey feel good about putting everyone out and having them march him around the school like they’re his personal bodyguards.

Of course, thinking about bodyguards makes him think about Dr. Naser and how she keeps calling David “Mr. Bodyguard”, and that makes Casey’s cheeks get hot right in the middle of his English class, where he’s been studiously ignoring the tiny balls of paper that Johannson is throwing at Casey’s hair from two seats back. Ignoring works pretty well until Mrs. Wells leaves the classroom to run off more photocopies of the editing exercise, and Johansson leans up in his seat, bouncing a larger ball of paper off the back of Casey’s head.

“Hey, queer,” Johannson hisses at Casey. “Hey, turn around and look at me.”

Casey turns his head just enough to look back over his shoulder at Johannson, though he doesn’t answer him. He just blinks slowly and waits for whatever it is Johannson’s going to say, so that he can turn back around and wait for his worksheet.

“So, you _paying_ those guys to babysit you or you just sucking their dicks for ’em?” Johannson asks, then snickers. Casey can feel his cheeks burning as he turns back towards the front of the classroom, sliding down low in his chair and wishing he could just disappear. Casey takes his time putting his books back into his backpack when the bells rings, and Johannson knocks Casey’s pencil off his desk on his way out. Casey just picks it up, puts everything back into his bag, and then finally stands up and leaves the classroom once it’s nearly empty.

“Cherry,” Miles says as soon as Casey steps out into the hallway, then stops. “You got paper in your hair? Is this some new trend I missed?”

Casey runs his fingers through his hair and shakes the clinging paper bits loose. “No. There was paper. Um. Flying around, some.”

“Umm-huh.” Miles shrugs and starts walking down the hall, and David appears next to them when they turn the corner. “Hey, Sheepdog, someone’s been tossing paper in Cherry’s hair.”

David slows and turns to look at Casey, then back in the direction they came from. “In English?”

“It wasn’t anything,” Casey says. “Really. Just some paper, it’s fine.” He feels tired, bone-tired, and he’s glad it’s Friday, at least.

“Johannson,” David says to Miles, who grimaces and shakes his head.

“That reminds me. Casey… I gotta ask you something.”

“It was just paper,” Casey repeats. “It’s fine, Miles.”

“Not about that. Look, you two tell me to butt out if it’s none of my business, but Fordham’s goin’ around saying he’s the reason you were out of school.”

Casey stops abruptly in the hallway, just literally freezes so fast mid-step that he almost falls over when David takes a step forward and bumps into him. “I don’t know why he’d say that,” Casey says, quickly.

“Well, see, at first I thought, he’s just makin’ noise, but.” Miles shakes his head again.

“Case?” David asks softly.

“No. It’s nothing. It’s _nothing_ ,” Casey says, making himself continue down the hallway, perhaps a little faster than before. Or a lot faster.

“Casey,” David repeats. “Casey, c’mon, stop.”

“Shit,” Miles says. “Sorry, Karofsky. Sorry.”

Casey doesn’t turn around, just keeps on walking and doesn’t look back, hanging on to some little shred of hope that if they just make it to lunch he can distract David with the ‘eat something’ argument and they’ll just… _not_ talk about this.

“Casey.” David’s voice is firmer, and then David’s hand comes to rest on Casey’s shoulder. Casey stops, slumps a little under David’s touch.

“It’s nothing,” Casey says, not looking directly at David, because it’s much easier to not tell David things if he doesn’t have to look at him.

“I am so confused,” Miles mutters.

“I’m not as confused as I’d like to be,” David states, then turns back to Casey. “Case?”

“It’s nothing?” Casey says again, hoping David will drop it. Casey will eat a whole hamburger. He’ll eat french fries. He’ll eat random weird mystery meat, if only they can just go into the lunch room and not talk about this any more.

“If it’s nothing, what’s it hurt to tell me, then?” David asks, his voice low.

Casey shifts from foot to foot and presses his lips together into a small, tight frown. Finally, he says, “Because I don’t want you to do anything to get you in trouble.”

“Case.” David sounds disappointed. “Now I know you need to tell me.”

“It just, it was just, you know. Compared to the other stuff.” Casey shrugs and rocks back on his heels a little.

“Still.”

“A couple days before, you know, before, um, _Monday_?” David nods, so Casey continues. “I went on a walk. I go on walks sometimes. Went on walks. To get out of the house some. And I went to Robb Park and, um, well. Fordham was there, so.”

“What did he do?” Miles growls.

“He wanted me to give him some money,” Casey says, softly. “But I didn’t have any money. So, I dunno. He just, it wasn’t that big a deal, guys.”

David sighs, just a long, sad sound. “Case.”

“I mean, you know. Compared to.” Casey shrugs. “Other stuff.”

“Apples, oranges, I don’t care if you got a tanker truck of OJ, you should’ve at least told Karofsky here about the applesauce.”

Casey and David both stare at Miles. Miles just shrugs.

“You said ‘compare’. Like apples and oranges.”

“Your mind must be a disturbing place,” David says slowly. “But you have a point. He has a point, Case.”

“He just,” Casey sighs. “He just shoved me into the slide a little. Pushed me some. It wasn’t, it’s not. Really, it’s nothing.”

David looks sad, shaking his head and continuing the walk down the hall towards the cafeteria, and Miles just purses his lips and then frowns.

“You have any classes with him?” David finally asks.

Casey shakes his head. “No. It’s really. It’s not anything.”

David doesn’t respond, just pulls out his phone and sends off a text as they reach the cafeteria. “He does anything else, tell me, okay?” he says as they get in line.

“Okay, David,” Casey says, even though he might not. The last thing David needs is _more_ trouble, and Casey already feels like far, far more trouble than he’s worth.

 

Dave shakes the salt over the bowl a final time and heads back into the room with the others, sitting down beside Casey on the couch and putting the popcorn on the table so, in theory, all three of them can reach it. Paul waves it off at first offer, though, and Dave scoots it closer to Casey. Maybe Casey will eat unconsciously while watching.

“Pick something out?”

“ _Captain America_?” Casey says.

“Sure.” Dave shrugs.

“You boys have a good time in Dayton today?”

“It was quieter this time,” Casey says. “On the drive.”

Dave laughs. “Everything’s quieter without Miles.”

“That is very true,” Casey agrees.

“But yeah, Dad, it was pretty good.”

“Good, good.” Paul nods and hits play on the remote.

Dave loses himself in the movie at first, eating popcorn and carefully nudging the bowl closer to Casey each time he reaches for a new handful. There’s a feather–light touch on his knuckles after a few moments, and he glances down to realize Casey’s brushing the salt off his hand. Dave resists the urge to chuckle. First fixing his books, now removing the salt.

The brushing doesn’t stop even when the salt is gone, though. Casey keeps running his fingertips over Dave’s knuckles, tracing down the bones in Dave’s hand, first with one finger and then with all of them. Dave holds his hand still and tries to focus on the movie, even though part of him says he should stop Casey, but the rest of him says no, and besides, it might hurt Casey’s feelings or something.

“More popcorn?” he whispers when the bowl is nearly empty.

“Hmm?” Casey answers, his voice distracted.

“The popcorn. Do you, uh. Want more?”

“Mm, no, I’m okay.” Casey sounds almost sleepy, his fingers still on Dave’s hand.

“If you’re sure.” Dave shrugs.

“Mmhmm,” Casey says, nodding. His hand slips a little, his fingers resting on Dave’s pulse, and Casey’s thumb circles the back of Dave’s wrist. Dave exhales slowly, not knowing what to do, deciding not to do anything. He just sits and watches the movie.

 

Casey’s in his house, his old house, only it’s bigger than it ever was. Bigger, darker, and with more places to hide. Casey’s hiding in a small space, it might be in his room or it might be some room that never really existed in his house, curled into a tiny ball, breathing so light he barely stirs the air, keeping so quiet. If he can just hide good enough. If he can just hide good enough, it’ll be okay, everything’ll be okay. Cover his eyes, cover his ears, head down, stay quiet, be good, and everything’ll be okay.

He always makes a noise, he stirs and something near him shifts, or else he coughs, or sometimes he just makes a sound for reasons he can’t even understand, and everything isn’t okay. Of course it’s not okay. It’s still dark, but hands are pulling on him, hurting him, hitting him, and he’s stuck in the small space he was hiding, it’s a corner he’s trapped in.

He doesn’t fight, because fighting makes it worse, and he doesn’t run, because he can’t, and then there’s a moment where he feels hands, _real_ hands, on him, on his shoulder, rubbing a soft circle on his back, and he can’t make sense of which hands are real. Dream hands that hurt, strong hands that comfort, his own hands on himself in the shower in shame and frustration over feelings he needs to _not_ , just _not_ feel right now, and he’s not sure which are the worst, really.

“Case.” David’s voice is soft. “Case. Shhh. Wake up.”

Casey can’t even make himself roll over. He just slides himself over by shoving against the mattress, until his whole body, from shoulders to feet, is pressed against the curve of David’s body. David’s hand stills on his shoulder, heavy and warm, and he can feel David’s exhalations against his neck.

“Okay?” David asks softly after a long moment.

Casey puts his hand on top of David’s, the hand that’s on Casey’s shoulder, and then without even thinking he grasps David’s hand and pulls his arm down around Casey’s chest. “Don’t go. Don’t go, okay?” Casey whispers. “Just don’t go.”

“Nobody’s going anywhere. ’Cept to sleep.” David sounds almost amused. “Sleep, okay, Case?”

Casey grips David’s arm even tighter, but he nods. “Okay. Sleep. Yeah.”

As David falls asleep, his arm tightens, and Casey relaxes, finally. When he falls back to sleep, he doesn’t dream.

 

Dave sighs and frowns at his book. “I am so glad I don’t have to take psychology again.”

“You don’t want to take it at Tech?” Casey asks, grinning. “I bet it’s _extra_ fun there!”

“Shush!” Dave flicks his pencil at Casey. “You’re cruel, you know that?”

“Um. Yes?”

Dave laughs. “As long as you know. How’s your work coming?”

“I’ll trade you for your psych. You like history, right?”

“Aw, world history’s not so bad,” Dave insists. “It’s just that teacher.”

“No, it’s so _boring_ ,” Casey says. “All that stuff. History is full of really _stupid_ stuff that people did.”

“That’s true. Lots and lots of stupid things.”

“People are really stupid,” Casey says, fiercely, probably more than the statement really requires. He shoves his history book a little bit.

Dave nods. “Sometimes.”

“Most of the time, I think. Most of the people, most of the time.” Casey twists a piece of his hair around his finger.

“Aren’t you a little young to be _that_ cynical?” Dave teases. Casey looks up at Dave blankly. “Aw, you know there’s still decent people out there, Case.”

“Yeah, David, I know,” Casey says. “You. Your dad. Miles, well, sometimes Miles is decent. Rick’s good. The PFLAG people. Dr. Naser’s okay. All those nurses at the hospital were nice. Oh, I like Coach Beiste. Ms. Pillsbury’s nice. Some of my teachers are okay, too. I like some of the people from the center.”

“That’s a pretty long list,” Dave points out, trying not to grin too broadly.

“I have a long list of the stupid people, too,” Casey says. “Pretty much all the people from my history book are on it.”

“That’s why they’re in the history book, probably.”

“History is _sad_. I don’t like it.”

“Well, you don’t have to take history your senior year, at least.”

“Yeah, that’s really far away,” Casey says, sighing. He looks almost downtrodden at the thought. “Hey. David?”

“Yeah?”

“I want to talk to my mom.”

“Oh.” Dave exhales, trying to figure out what to say. “I, um. I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Case.”

“I know I’m not supposed to _see_ her. I just. I want to talk to her,” Casey says, not looking at Dave. He picks up his pencil and makes little doodles down the side of his history homework while he’s talking. “Make sure she’s okay.”

Dave can’t help it – he knows he’s looking at Casey incredulously. “You want to make sure _she’s_ okay?” he blurts out before he can stop himself. “Case.”

“She’s my _mom_ , David.”

“And it’s her job to make sure you’re okay, not the other way around,” Dave says, his voice a little softer, but he’s pretty sure he still sounds disbelieving at best.

“She’s probably not allowed to call me,” Casey says. “But maybe. I thought, I could talk to Dr. Naser tomorrow. Or, or maybe you could talk to her with me?”

“Casey.” Dave sighs. “You can talk to Dr. Naser about it. But I— I think it’s a bad idea, Case.”

“It’s just. She’s all alone now, David,” Casey says, glancing up at Dave and then back down at his paper. “She doesn’t have anybody.”

“You can talk to Dr. Naser,” Dave repeats, because he can’t bring himself to voice his thoughts, about how Amy made her own choices, is an adult that made her choice, every single day.

“I tried to call my house,” Casey says, softly. “But. But the number didn’t work.”

Dave takes a deep breath. “Your— Mick is in jail, Casey. And I honestly don’t know where your mom went.”

“I thought, I dunno. I just thought she might. Um. Want me to come home.”

“Case. Um.” Dave looks at the clock helplessly, wishing his dad would appear, or hell, anyone. “The social worker or whoever, um. Talked to her.”

Casey slowly tilts his head and looks at David, his eyes narrowing slightly like he’s coming to an understanding. “Oh,” he says. “Oh. Well. Oh.”

“Case,” Dave whispers.

Casey shrugs, a tiny movement of his shoulders. “I guess I don’t need to talk to Dr. Naser about that, then.” He looks back down at his paper.

“I’m sorry.” It seems inadequate, but he is. Dave doesn’t know why sometimes people get shit parents and sometimes they luck out. It sucks for Casey he couldn’t even get one lucky hit.

“I know,” Casey says. “It’s just. It’s how it is.”


	4. 3x22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Swiss. Life is like a musical. A preview of the future.
> 
> Half of the time we're gone, but we don't know where.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Playlist for 3x22 "Only Living Boys in New York"](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6E3CE8E72432D7D3)

“New text?” Kurt raises an eyebrow as he steers the Nav away from Puck’s apartment.

“Mike,” Puck nods. “I think he wanted a heads up on tonight.”

“Ah, yes. Team Finn, Team Rachel, and Team Swiss.”

“Hardly seems fair that they get all the food.” Puck grins. “Or all of the cheese, anyway.”

“It hardly seems fair that we have to meet in Rachel’s basement, where Hiram and Leroy can glower at Finn.”

“Also true.” Puck shrugs. “Unless they don’t glower. I mean, surely they realize it takes two to tango.”

“Good point.” Kurt eases the Nav next to the curb in front of the Hudmel house. When Finn doesn’t appear immediately, Kurt leans on the horn, leaving the wipers going against the soft snowfall. “I wish climate change meant less snow in Ohio instead of more.”

“Global warming does seem to be a whatdacallit,” Puck agress. “A miss–thingie.”

“Misnomer?”

“Yeah, that.”

Finn finally opens the front door, taking his sweet time to walk out to the Nav. “Clearly, _he_ thinks Leroy and Hiram might glower,” Puck says quietly, and Kurt snorts once before blanking his face.

“Hey, guys,” Finn says, climbing into the back seat. “Into the belly of the beast or whatever, I guess?”

“Does that make the house a beast, and the ‘Oscar room’ a belly? Because that explains a lot, somehow,” Puck muses.

“This is gonna be a fuck shit stack,” Finn groans. “Can we cancel?”

“No,” Kurt says, firmly but regretfully. “Really, Finn, it won’t be too horrible if there’s enough of the cheese there.”

“Someone’s bringing cheese?”

Puck snorts. “No, Team Swiss.”

“I’m confused,” Finn confesses. “Which one is Swiss? Is my team Swiss? I want to be cheddar. Oh, or pepper jack.”

“No, you’re Team Finn, remember?” Kurt shakes his head. “At least it will be… enlightening. Or something.”

“I’d rather be Team Pepper Jack,” Finn says. “I think more people would like that team.”

“I prefer a nice sharp cheddar to pepper jack.”

“Depends on what we’re eating.”

“Either way, I think that the girls mostly like cheese better than they like me,” Finn says. “So, can I be, like, Team Puck or something? Or Team Kurt? They all still like you.”

“Team Puckmel?”

“Sure, I could get behind that,” Finn agrees. There’s a long silence before Puck finally lets out a snort, and Finn says, “Oh god!” and starts laughing. “Sorry! I mean I totally support Team Puckmel.” He shakes his head at himself.

Kurt laughs so hard he’s wiping away a few stray tears when he parks in front of the Berry house. “On that note, let’s go rehearse!”

“So awesome,” Finn says, wryly. “This is gonna just be _great_.”

Puck shoves his left hand into his pocket and raps on the door with his right before sticking it into his pocket as well. There’s a slight pause before footsteps approach and the door swings open, revealing Leroy.

“Hi Puck, Kurt, Finn. How’s your friend Casey doing?” Leroy says, stepping out of the way so they can come in out of the rapidly accumulating snow.

“Better?” Kurt answers. “I think it will help a great deal that he’s no longer living with his father.”

“I agree. It sounds like a terrible situation,” Leroy says, shaking his head sadly. “Let your father know we appreciate him catching us up on everything. I’m sorry we weren’t available in the moment.”

“I will,” Kurt nods. “I know the Karofskys appreciated the linens and food and things; David said he thought you and Hiram had a hand in organizing that.”

“Well, we’re a small community, but that makes us easy to activate,” Leroy responds, with a small smile. “Paul Karofsky wasn’t sure what to make of the group of us showing up on his door step, but he was very gracious. Even served us coffee.”

“Coffee is very important,” Puck interjects, with a slight grin.

“Most definitely,” Leroy says. “They’re down there. Good luck, Finn,” he adds, with an uncharacteristically sympathetic tone.

“Uh, thanks?” Finn answers. Puck nods at Leroy and claps Finn on the shoulder, forcing him to start down the stairs behind Kurt. Puck is pretty sure Finn would stay upstairs shooting the breeze with Leroy for two hours if they let him.

“Hello, three boys’ worth of feet!” Brittany calls up to them as they walk down the stairs.

“Hello, Britt,” Kurt calls back, and he smiles slightly at her once they reach the bottom. “How are you today?”

“It’s snowing again,” she says, like it’s a perfectly valid answer to Kurt’s question.

“Yes, it is,” Kurt agrees. “Hello, Santana.” He tilts his head to the side, and Puck can see why. Artie’s sitting next to Santana and Brittany, then Mike, Tina, and Sam are talking quietly. “And Artie. Ready for this?”

“I was born ready,” Artie says. “Then I became considerably less ready, but now I’m ready all over again.”

“Great, you’re here,” Mike says suddenly, smiling over at them. He walks over to Finn and holds out his fist. “All right, dude?”

Finn bumps Mike’s fist. “Yeah, it’s cool.”

“Oh, look, everyone’s actually here!” Rachel flounces towards them—there’s really no other word for it—and stops a few feet from Finn. “Good to know you could show up!”

Finn rolls his eyes so hard that his whole head rolls around with them. Rachel just stares at him until midway through the head rolling, and then her eyes narrow before widening. “You—! Your—!” she splutters.

It only takes a moment for Finn’s face to transition from confusion to understanding, and he lifts his chin a little, defiantly, and levels a look at Rachel. “My?”

“Your, your neck,” she manages to force out, and something about her distress is like a siren call to Quinn and Mercedes and they walk over as Finn responds.

“Yeah, what about it?” Finn answers, stubbornly, not making any effort to duck his head, but not showing it off, either.

Rachel’s eyes narrow again, then she flicks her gaze first to Puck and then Kurt. Puck lifts one shoulder minutely, and Kurt just meets her gaze, unblinking. “You!” she gasps, eyes wide again.

“What about them?” Finn asks, his face blank, but his tone oddly protective.

“Did Puck find you one of his desperate housewives, Finn?” Quinn asks, her tone like acid.

Puck exchanges a glance with Kurt for a split second before letting himself smirk just a little, looking straight at Quinn. “You could say I was instrumental in its creation.”

“Well,” Santana says slowly, “Bra _vo_.” She smirks a little. “Didn’t know you had it in you, Hudson.”

“Just the once,” Finn deadpans.

Santana slowly claps. “Well, color me impressed. Boys.” She shakes her head. “How does _that_ feel, Manhands?” She laughs once at the end of the sentence.

“Seriously?” Mercedes interjects. “You dumped your girlfriend and went to hook up with some kind of disgusting cougar? That is just wrong, white boy.”

Finn shrugs. “Are we going to rehearse? It’s only two weeks until Regionals and believe it or not, the judges aren’t going to vote for us because we talk the best.”

“I thought we’d decided to enter a hickey competition, instead.” Puck shrugs. “I’m down with that.”

“Wouldn’t even be fair,” Finn says, shaking his head. “Run through the whole thing tonight, Mike? Figured we could all use some practice on the choreography.”

“I agree,” Mike nods. “And I think everyone could use a reminder that while we’re not getting paid, our conduct should be like we _are_ professionals.”

Rachel stiffens at the insinuation. “Of _course_. Consummate professionals.”

“No, I think part of the problem was a lack of _consummation_ ,” Santana snarks.

“…which is exactly what I was talking about,” Mike says, shaking his head. “Let’s go, guys!”

When they finish the rehearsal, it’s Mike who declares that they are finished, though he exchanges a look with Finn before doing so. “Oh, good, I’ll go get our vegan snacks!” Rachel chirps.

“We’ve still got deviled eggs at home,” Finn says to Puck and Kurt. “I asked mom to hide them from me, but you can probably find them.”

Kurt smiles slightly. “Oh, good. Maybe there’s still some of that smoked salmon, too.”

“Yeah, or some pork chops,” Puck can’t resist adding, and he hears an aggravated huff from Rachel at the top of the stairs.

“Hey,” Mike approaches them after just a second. “Do you know how Casey’s doing? Or Karofsky, for that matter?”

“I _think_ Casey’s coming back to school tomorrow.” Kurt shrugs slightly. “Physically, yes, I think he’s doing much better.”

“Karofsky and I have texted a couple of time,” Finn says. “He doesn’t exactly share a lot of information, but he seems a lot better, having Casey at his place.”

“Oh, wow, Casey’s staying with him now?” Mike asks. “I mean, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.” He shakes his head a little and then nods. “Somehow I just don’t see either of them being the type to _tell_ us if they need anything.”

“I think Karofsky needs, like, eyes on the ground or something,” Finn suggests. “I get the feeling he’s gonna be trying to wait outside every one of Casey’s classrooms for a while.”

“We should make Rick stick close,” Puck suggests. “Don’t they have some classes together?”

“Is Rickenbacker as smart as Casey?” Kurt asks mildly. “Maybe Casey could help Rickenbacker with his homework.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s a good idea,” Finn says, nodding. “I’ll shoot Karofsky an email or something about that. I bet he could talk to Rick, get him to ask.”

“I want to paint Casey’s car,” Brittany says. “I asked my dad and he said yes, and to give you a check. It doesn’t have any numbers on it yet, so he says you’ll have to put them on there.”

“Oh, Britt, that’s wonderful,” Kurt says softly. “Did we tell you? Apparently Casey wants a yellow car.”

“He likes red food,” Brittany shrugs. “But you don’t eat cars, so I guess that makes sense.”

“What else do you need for it?” Tina asks. “Just gas cards? Or anything else?”

“I’m buying the fuzzy dice, so you’d better back off if that’s what you’re thinking,” Finn warns, playfully.

“A triple-A membership might be nice,” Kurt suggests. “Or several of you could get him one for multiple years.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea, yeah!” Tina smiles. “When’s his birthday again?”

“March 23,” Puck answers, feeling proud that he actually remembered. “It’s a Friday.”

“Here we are!” Rachel’s voice trills from the top of the stairs. “Eggplant bacon, pierogi, and tempeh cakes! Better than the animal products on which they are modeled!”

Puck makes a face. “Did she seriously just say ‘eggplant bacon’?” he whispers to Kurt, who pulls a similar face and nods.

“I doubt her pierogies have cheese in them, either.”

Puck shudders. “This is just wrong. What the hell is a tempeh cake?”

“Like a _crab_ cake, Noah, but without killing an innocent crab!”

“Deviled eggs,” Finn says, under his breath. “Think about the eggs.”

“Forget eggs, I was thinking about wings on the way home!”

“Best brothers _ever_ ,” Finn whispers, fiercely.

“Can I come too?” Mike asks weakly.

“Maybe,” Kurt answers, and he arches one eyebrow. “You don’t go for Honey Mustard or Mild, do you?”

“Cajun, BBQ, or Hot.”

“Well.” Kurt looks at Finn and raises both eyebrows. “What do you think?”

“Team Wings?” Finn suggests.

“It might catch on,” Puck agrees, and Finn nods.

“Awesome!” Mike grins. “That way we can skip the, um, vegetable meat. Which is an oxymoron.”

“And you can tell us how your auditions went.”

“Do I have to?” Mike laughs. “I finally finished with that.”

“Yes, so we can forget about our own.”

“See? This is the real reason I went with football,” Finn says, looking a little smug. “No auditions!”

“It’s also why we hate you,” Kurt says sweetly, smiling slightly as he stands up. “Are we horribly rude if we leave now for wings?”

“I think it’s more likely we’ll be envied.” Puck looks at the ‘snack table’, where Rachel and Quinn are enthusiastically condemning bacon to Mercedes, who does look less than convinced.

“Screw rude. Let’s get out of here,” Finn says.

“Maybe it’s actually Team Carnivore and Team Herbivore,” Puck decides as they head up the stairs, and he grins a little to himself when he realizes that it’s just the four of them, all people who know.

“So,” Mike begins as they step outside. “A cougar rebound?”

“Sorry, Mike,” Finn says, shaking his head apologetically. “That information is strictly between brothers.”

 

English is definitely frosty. Puck absently spares a moment to be thankful that Hiram and Leroy probably reminded Rachel that outing someone isn’t an appropriate reprisal, or he would be worried about what would come out of her mouth. As it is, she just turns away pointedly from him, and rushes out of the room at the bell.

Puck shrugs and walks towards the choir room at a more sedate pace, noting that Schue is already standing at the front of the room, looking like he’s trying to ward something off. What, Puck doesn’t know, and doesn’t particularly care.

“I didn’t think of an assignment,” Schue says mildly, like nothing happened on Friday. “But before we rehearse, does anyone have a performance for us?”

Finn raises his hand, looking a little sheepish. Puck purses his lips, then looks over questioningly at Kurt, who just shrugs. Who knows.

“Oh, okay, great, Finn. Let’s hear it!”

Finn ambles to the front, and then hands some music to Brad before turning to face the room somewhat shyly.

Puck finds himself trying to _analyze_ the piano intro, so he shakes his head and forces himself not to do so. It’s very mellow and continues for at least half a minute before Finn starts singing, his voice low and kind of heavy.

 _You may tire of me as our December sun is setting because I'm not who I used to be_

Finn picks at one of his thumbnails and stares at a point on the floor far from where he’s standing.

 _The youthful boy below who turned your way and saw  
Something he was not looking for: both a beginning and an end _

Puck nods a little but doesn’t do what he wants to do, which is pick up Kurt’s hand and squeeze it.

 _Leaving everything behind  
But even at our swiftest speed we couldn't break from the concrete   
In the city where we still reside. _

Now Finn is still staring at the floor, but he’s smiling slightly, sweetly and wistfully.

 _Cause now we say goodnight from our own separate sides  
Like brothers on a hotel bed _

He looks more solid by the end of the song, his smile still a little wider, and when he sits down, he shoots a little crooked grin in Puck and Kurt’s direction.

“That was really nice,” Schue says with a little nod towards Finn. “Anyone else?”

Rachel huffs and makes a face, crossing her arms across her chest. Clearly she doesn’t have a song ready, and wishes she does.

“Mr. Schue?” Mercedes’ voice carries from the back row, too sweet, and Puck rolls his eyes. “I’d like to perform today.”

“Mercedes! Fantastic. What do you have for us?” Schue looks almost bewildered that there’s not just one, but two performances.

“I’d like to do a song by Destiny’s Child, ‘Say My Name’.”

Mercedes takes a deep breath before starting to sing.

 _Say my name, say my name  
If no one is around you, say “baby I love you”   
If you ain't runnin’ game   
Say my name, say my name   
You actin’ kinda shady   
Ain't callin me baby   
Why the sudden change? _

Puck is pretty sure it’s meant to be supportive to Rachel, but he’s really not following most of the lyrics. Of course, he’s not trying particularly hard, either, because this is starting to be a waste of their time. Fuck this, he wants to go back to New York in May.

 _When I just heard the voice  
Heard the voice of someone else   
Just this question   
Why do you feel you gotta lie?   
Gettin’ caught up in your game   
When you cannot say my name_

“Okay, well, great job, Mercedes,” Schue claps his hands and nods. “Now. Let’s get down to rehearsal. Any thoughts?”

“Maybe we should do Finn and Mercedes’ songs at Regionals instead?” Quinn suggests, her voice syrupy. “As a mash-up.”

“I do love a great mash-up,” Schue sighs, shaking his head. “But I don’t know that those two would work together. Remember what we learned a couple of years ago? Some songs just don’t go together.”

“Fascinating as this is, shouldn’t we actually rehearse?” Puck asks, raising an eyebrow. “Since we’re not doing any mash-ups, it’s not really relevant, is it?”

“Oh, well, good point,” Schue blusters for a moment. “Yes, we should rehearse. Oh, right! We’ll be down a couple of you later this week, too.” He smiles slightly at Puck and then Kurt before clapping his hands. “Let’s get to work.”

 

Puck frowns a little when he notices Karofsky walking towards math. Wasn’t Casey supposed to go back to school? Not that it’d keep Karofsky from having to attend dual enrollment, but he can’t remember hearing or seeing Casey, and no one else mentioned him either. Puck picks up his pace a little, catching up to Karofsky easily.

“Hey, dude. Casey come back to school today?”

Karofsky startles a little, then nods once before answering. “Nah, he was going to, but his psych appointment was middle of the day in Dayton, so. He would have missed pretty much everything but first period.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“Probably, yeah.” Karofsky nods. “I can’t tell if he’s nervous about it or not.” He shrugs. “I mean, I haven’t heard any rumors going around, but I’m not exactly tapped into the sophomore grapevine.”

Puck snorts. “Yeah, I hear you. Let us know if he needs anything, yeah? We’ll be gone the end of the week, but.”

“Yeah?”

“Auditions. Which I’m trying to forget about as long as possible.” Puck smiles tightly.

Karofsky laughs as they enter the classroom and sit down. “Yeah, I can understand that!”

 

“Tonight is going to suck.”

“I know.” Kurt frowns. “Horrible idea, ridiculous, et cetera.”

“Well, at least I can stop recycling the same four T-shirts?” Puck shrugs and climbs into the driver’s seat of the Nav. “I get to drive back over here, though.”

“Why?”

“The professor that was doing the theory stuff, he wants me to meet with him one last time, so this afternoon, but he can’t do it until 4:30. So I’ll probably just pick you up on my way back.”

“Okay.” Kurt purses his lips. “So basically you have just over an hour to go get your stuff from home, drive to your house, and start repacking?”

“Pretty much, yep.” Puck shakes his head. “Crazy day.”

“And you’re going to take the luggage so your clothes won’t get wrinkled in transit?”

“I seriously doubt that they’re going to get wrinkled in fifteen minutes between, but yes, I will,” Puck sighs with a little grin. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic.” Kurt beams at him momentarily. “I will cherish the thought while I change the oil on multiple cars.”

“Well, whatever you need to do,” Puck snorts, pulling up in front of the shop. “It’ll be between 5:30 and 6:30.”

“Okay.” Kurt climbs out and shrugs a little. “Be good.”

Puck grins. “I’m always good.”

 

There’s no one else at Kurt’s house when Puck gets back, so he pulls into the garage like Kurt had mentioned and heads up the stairs. It does make a weird sort of sense to pick Monday night, if he had to pick one night. No work the next morning, so Kurt can drive himself and the luggage back. It doesn’t take Puck long to stuff his dirty laundry into his duffel bag; he’s not all that concerned about forgetting something.

Packing at his own house takes longer; clothes for Wednesday morning at work plus Wednesday for school and traveling have to go one place, everything for New York has to go in other places, and his room actually smells sort of stale, so he cracks the window despite it being February.

“Oh, hmm.” Puck flips through a stack of papers on his desk, tossing most of them in the trash and putting a few more onto his shelf. The only remaining item is the letter that Kurt gave him on Valentine’s Day, and Puck shakes his head. He hadn’t read it that day, determined to save it for the following day, when he’d come back from working Wednesday closing and have to be alone, but he’d ended up so tired and sick that he’d gone back to bed. When he packed the next day, the letter wasn’t even on his—by then extremely sick—radar. Now, though. He picks up the letter and moistens his lips, checking the time. No, he should wait, wait and read it after Kurt leaves later that night, and with that, he tucks it half–under his lamp on his bedside table before scanning the room. Backpack with meds, wallet, and notebooks; check. Duffel bag ready to go with him the next morning; check. Everything for New York in one of the pieces of Kurt’s luggage; check. With that, Puck shrugs and heads back to the Nav, luggage in hand and backpack over one shoulder. He figures he can grab his guitar the next morning, too.

His theory professor is almost frantic, seemingly more nervous than Puck himself is, which would be alarming except that he’s seemed a little strange the entire quarter. The review sheets he’s handed are very thorough, though, along with a recommendation for an iPad app, which Puck figures he can get Kurt to put on his iPad. It takes the man over an hour to go over everything that’s apparently on his agenda, and Puck is legitimately relieved to climb back in the Nav, away from the too–fast anxious tones. _And I’m the one with a fucking anxiety disorder!_

“Good session?”

“Crazy, but he gave me a few things.” Puck shrugs. “Why the fuck did we agree to this tonight?”

Kurt shakes his head and shrugs. “Well, we know what’s going to happen, right?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“So let’s just plan for it. We’ll eat dinner and then take a nap.”

Puck purses his lips. “It could work.”

“We’ll set the alarm for just before curfew, I’ll head home, and if we end up awake for a few hours after that, at least we’ll have slept some already.”

“That’s true.” Puck shakes his head. “Messed up, blue eyes, that’s what we are.”

“I’d rather… well, you know.” Kurt smiles brilliantly and Puck returns the grin as they park.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Oh, good, you’re here!” Hannah plows into both of them almost as soon as they walk into the apartment. “Mom’s making swiss steak and gravy and mashed potatoes! And something green, too.”

“Something green?” Puck repeats. “Okay.”

“It’s Swiss chard,” Rina’s voice calls from the kitchen.

“Quite a theme,” Kurt mutters under his breath, smiling slightly.

“I can’t believe you’re actually here, Noah.” Rina comes to the doorway and leans on it, looking at him appraisingly. “Hello, Kurt, it’s good to see you.” She flashes a quick smile at Kurt before turning back to Puck. “And you are recovered now, Noah?”

“Um, yeah, for the most part,” Puck nods. “Still get a little tired, but neither of us got a lung infection like Finn did.”

Rina tsks and walks back into the kitchen. “Well, thankfully your sister and I didn’t get sick. You must have missed a lot of work, though.”

“Uh, a bit. Just twelve or thirteen hours.”

“Well, I can’t imagine that looks good.” Puck can hear her serving the food onto plates and then setting them on the table. “And now you’re going to miss how many hours this weekend?” She shakes her head. “Your manager must be unhappy.”

“She’d rather me miss a shift or two than get people sick,” Puck points out, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, that’d be gross, if Noah sneezed in somebody’s coffee!” Hannah darts into the kitchen with that. “Can I pour drinks, Mom? I promise not to sneeze in them!” She giggles with her last sentence and Puck grins.

“Yes, fine,” Rina sighs. “And I just don’t know, Noah. Are you going to be able to work more hours next Friday when you don’t have school?”

“Probably not?” Puck shrugs and looks at Kurt, because he didn’t realize they didn’t have school. “What, the day before Regionals?”

“I suspect we’ll end up rehearsing.”

Puck groans. “Yeah, probably so. One way or another.”

“I’m not sure that we shouldn’t run through it once, in costume, and then call it done, though.”

“Mention it to Mike and Finn both, maybe they can pre-empt other efforts.”

“Speaking of other efforts, dinner is ready.” Rina shakes her head as they sit down. “I heard you saw your Nana on Friday night, Noah.”

“Oh, yeah. Did you know she still shows people pictures of me from elementary school?”

Rina snorts. “I did not, but nothing about my mother surprises me. I was surprised that you went to services on a Friday night instead of Saturday morning.”

“We had plans on Saturday,” Puck says with a shrug, because well, they did.

“And you just felt the need to go to services?” Rina sounds skeptical, and Puck guesses he can’t really blame her, since it’s not like he’s usually volunteering to go.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Puck replies, and something about his face or his tone must have gotten through to Rina, because she pauses mid–bite.

“Oh?” She looks carefully at him. “Everything all right?”

“Just— we’re fine,” he settles on, shooting a glance at Hannah, who is watching them very curiously. He’ll explain it to his mom later, while Hannah’s doing homework or playing Wii or something.

“All right,” Rina answers, a little dubiously, but then she goes back to eating, at least. “So you’ll let me know you’re alive each night that you’re gone, yes?”

“Yes, Mom.” Puck resists the urge to roll his eyes. “I’ll text you by, I don’t know. Nine or so?”

“That’s fine.” Rina nods once. “Are you staying here Sunday night when you get back?”

“I think that will depend on if there are any delays with the flight,” Kurt interjects. “The flight isn’t even scheduled to land until almost ten, so if we’re delayed, it’d probably be easiest if we crashed as soon as possible.”

“Oh, that late?” Rina shakes her head. “I don’t know why I thought it was 8:30 or so. Yes, well, that makes sense.”

“Can you bring me something back?” Hannah beams at them. “Like a Hard Rock T-shirt!”

Puck shrugs. “Sure. Why not?”

Hannah beams. “That’s even cooler than a free hat!”

“Well, we’re practically contractually obligated now,” Puck laughs. “I mean, if it’s better than a free hat.”

“A free hat?” Rina asks.

“Stevie’s brother got a free hat and came to pick Stevie up that day and everyone thought it was just _so_ cool.”

“Signing Day,” Puck clarifies.

“Ohh. A free hat.” She shakes her head.

“Is there time for dessert before dance class, Mom?”

“There’s a chocolate pie,” Rina acknowledges, and Puck grins.

“See? Now that’s a real dessert.”

Kurt laughs. “What about peanut butter desserts?”

“Only if they’re chocolate _and_ peanut butter.”

Kurt shrugs. “Good point.”

“What do you boys have planned for the evening?” Rina asks, and maybe it’s a little pointed, like she’s wanting some kind of assurance that they aren’t going to burn the entire building down or something ridiculous, while she takes Hannah to dance class.

“Napping,” Puck answers. “Weekend was busy, and we have rehearsal early tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Rina looks confused. “Well, okay. Hannah and I will try not to wake you up, I guess.”

“I’ll have my alarm set before curfew,” Kurt adds, and Rina nods, looking even more bewildered.

“All right,” she finally says, a little tentatively. “Hannah and I will be leaving in just a few minutes. Have a good nap.”

Puck isn’t sure if they stay awake until his mom and Hannah leave or not; he thought it might take a little while to fall asleep, since they’d not had a sleepless night preceding it, but what he said to his mom wasn’t untrue: they’d had a busy weekend. Surprising or not, once they get comfortable, Puck doesn’t remember much else.

 

Finn’s about to throw his trig book and what seems like an endless list of assignments across the room when he sees Kurt passing by his door.

“Hey,” Finn calls out, softly.

Kurt pauses and turns. “Oh, hey,” he greets Finn, voice equally soft. “Carole asleep?”

“Pretzels make moms tired,” Finn says, with his most serious nod. “No Puck, huh?”

Kurt makes a noise that sounds negative, shaking his head. “And yes, they do seem to do that.”

“Sucks, dude,” Finn says. “You need company or you want to be left alone to, like, wallow or something?”

“I will be awake. For awhile.” Kurt shrugs. “Pre-emptive napping.”

“That’s… kinda weird, but ok, cool.” Finn shoves his books off of his bed with a satisfying thunk and pats the space next to him.

“Trig not your favorite thing right now?” Kurt asks, sitting down and looking at the books in the floor with a small amount of curiosity.

“It’s never my favorite thing, but it’s my less–favorite thing now that I have to make up _all_ that work,” Finn grumbles. “Everybody else was cool, but not Mrs. Everley, noooo. Gotta make it all up.”

“Maybe she’s afraid you’ll one day need to know the cosine of something in a hurry.”

“Cosine of football. Cosine of music. Cosine of boredom,” Finn suggests, leaning back against his headboard.

“I didn’t say it was a realistic fear. More likely she thinks she’s doing you a favor, making you be responsible or something.”

“I hate responsibility,” Finn says. “Well, ok, no, I don’t. I just hate trig homework. How about you, did you finish all your makeup stuff?”

Kurt nods. “None of my teachers required me to make up all the assignments, though, except I had to do a timed essay for English, that they did in class.”

“I should have taken more smart people classes, I guess,” Finn sighs. “Us average intelligence guys have to make up all the work. Everything cool over at Puck’s? His mom and sister doing ok?”

“Hannah wants a Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt. Rina was Rina.” Kurt shrugs.

“Yeah, well. That’s Mrs. P, I guess.” Finn nudges Kurt a little with the top of his foot. “You two ready for New York?”

“New York, or the auditions?” Kurt asks ruefully. “The first, yes. The second, I hope so.”

“You’re gonna do great,” Finn says, confidently. “And I’ll fly to New York and visit and you can tell me all about how awesome it is to go to school with all those singing people.”

“Now I have a disturbing image of everyone randomly bursting into song in the middle of class. Oh, wait.” Kurt shakes his head. “We already do that, sometimes.”

“Our life is like a musical,” Finn agrees. “Singing, dancing, romances that don’t make any sense, and, um. Sometimes hats or whatever. Musicals have a lot of hats.”

“They’re excellent props. You can throw them in the air and everything.”

“I should learn some hat tricks. That one where you roll it down your arm and then flip it up onto your head would be pretty sweet.”

“You’ll be a hit at all the parties. Is that when you’re a drag queen or not?” Kurt teases.

“Do drag queens wear fedoras?” Finn grins at Kurt. “I don’t even know. I don’t know any drag queens. Never met any, even.”

“Of course not,” Kurt agrees. “How would you know?”

“I just take people at face value, I guess,” Finn says, shrugging. “Someone says she’s a lady, I’ll treat her like a lady. It just seems polite.”

“If only everyone thought that way.”

“Yup. That’s my brain! The way everybody oughta think!” Finn grins some more and settles back against his headboard. “I’m totally doing it right.”

“In that arena, anyway,” Kurt says dryly, shaking his head.

“Well, I figure it’s fair enough, since I’m screwing it up so many other places.”

Kurt shakes his head again and flicks Finn’s arm. “Oh, yes, such a failure.” He rolls his eyes.

“Ouch! You have sharp fingers!”

“The better to flick you with. I’m actually the Big Bad Wolf.”

Finn almost chokes on his snort of laughter. “Oh, dude. Dude. I just can’t even.”

“It does make you Little Red Riding Hood, which is a bit problematic.”

“Yeah, I think maybe… yeah, maybe that’s just.” Finn shakes his head, still laughing. “I can’t even.”

“I’ll look for a nice red cloak for you in New York,” Kurt promises brightly.

“As long as you don’t expect me to carry a basket,” Finn says. “I don’t think I can pull that look off.”

“Your mom has so many; I’m sure we can find one that suits.”

“I’m pretty sure I’d need the one that’s actually a building for it to be big enough to hold all my stuff.”

Kurt laughs. “That’s an excellent image. Truly excellent.”

“So, um,” Finn says, a little nervously. “Everything’s, like. _Cool_? With you guys?” He tries to look at Kurt without actually looking at Kurt, and probably only manages to look a little cross-eyed.

“Yes,” Kurt answers, matter–of–factly, nodding slightly.

“Ok. Yeah. Cool,” Finn says, nodding vigorously. “That’s good.”

“It is,” Kurt agrees. He looks almost amused, or maybe a little bit lost in thought.

“Yeah, it is,” Finn repeats, for lack of anything better to say.

“We are rehearsing in the morning, right?” Kurt raises an eyebrow, sighing slightly.

“That’s the plan,” Finn says. “Wish I were more excited about it, but.”

“I hate to admit it, but it’s probably for the best. Puck and I will miss four rehearsals while we’re gone, and we just don’t know how things will go with Schue.”

“Yeah, I know. And it’ll suck when you guys are gone, so we’ve gotta make the most of our time when you’re here. I just kinda don’t want to,” Finn says. “I know. I’ve got a bad attitude or whatever.”

Kurt laughs for a moment. “I think we’re all allowed at least a few days of bad attitude. Hopefully they just don’t all hit at the same time.”

“Let me know when you need a turn,” Finn says. “I’ll swap out with you.”

“We just won’t tell some people that it’s an option.”

“Hey, at least we’ll always have Brittany around to keep a good attitude, right?”

“The day Brittany has a bad attitude, we are all in trouble,” Kurt agrees with a nod. “I’d hate to think what would have to occur for that to happen.”

“Someone burns down all the unicorns?” Finn shrugs. “I guess she’d still have pegasuses though.”

“Pegasi?” Kurt offers.

“More than one horse with wings.”

“Probably involving glitter, rainbows, or rainbow glitter.” Kurt shrugs slightly, a small smile on his face.

Finn can’t help but smile back at Kurt, because Kurt–smiles just aren’t a common enough thing lately. “Something shiny, anyway.”

“Maybe Britt is part raccoon.”

“That would explain the tail.”

Kurt snorts out a short laugh. “It could potentially explain so many things.”

“See, and I’d just figured out about the legs, and now I have to figure out where the _tail_ goes,” Finn sighs dramatically. “So confusing.”

“Poor thing.” Kurt shakes his head. “So many parts to keep track of.”

“Yeah, definitely, um. More than planned.”

“Plans, pfft.” Kurt shrugs again, with that smile like he’s up to something. “Some people are just better able to keep on top of these things.”

Finn can’t even answer at first. He just stares at Kurt for a minute, not sure how he’s supposed to answer that, since he’s pretty sure they’d kinda silently agreed to not talk about it, but that definitely sounds like talking about it. “Um,” Finn says, trying not to blush or _react_ or whatever. “Or, you know. Middle of these things.”

“Precisely.” Kurt swings his legs up on top of the mattress. “So, can you do me a favor while I’m gone?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Finn says, relieved at the change of topic before he can say or do anything stupid.

“Well, two, but you’d do one of them anyway, maybe.”

“Hmm. Mysterious favors.”

Kurt giggles. “Just, you know, Pretzel.”

“Well, I don’t think I need to babysit yet or anything, dude.”

“Just the food stuff, like we’ve talked about.”

“No Diet Coke, no heavy metal fish, no soft cheese, check. I’ll eat any of that stuff if I see it!”

“See, you’re the perfect man for the job.”

“I’m awesome at all kinds of jobs. What’s the other favor?”

Kurt frowns. “Can you like, I don’t know.” He sighs. “There’s another one of those damn Jewish holidays next week. They pop up out of nowhere, I swear. Corner ben Israel and pump him for information, or something?”

“I’m not pumping ben Israel for _anything_ , but I’ll Google or something? Is that ok?” Finn grimaces at the idea of even having to _talk_ to ben Israel, especially about, well, ok, about anything.

“I think there’s something about costumes.”

“Like Halloween costumes or like, I dunno, something Jewish–specific?”

“Hannah said something about wearing Captain America again.” Kurt shrugs. “I don’t get it. Jewish Halloween?”

“Maybe I’ll just call Hannah. She’s smart, I bet she can explain it!” Finn grins.

Kurt laughs. “Maybe so.”

“Yeah, ok, I can take care of that. I’ll write down some notes for you so you don’t have to worry.”

“Thanks.” Kurt flashes him a smile.

“No problem. What are brothers for?” Finn pauses, then snorts a laugh at himself. “What _else_ are brothers for?”

Kurt grins. “On that note, I am going to go flop about uselessly on my bed. No, not really. I should do some homework.”

“If you’re going to flop, make sure you do some whining, too. That always works out pretty good for me,” Finn suggests. “If you get too miserable without Puck, just whine louder and I’ll come in there and demonstrate the cosine of dancing, ok?”

“Okay.” Kurt stands and grins one last time. “We really went off on quite a tangent.”

Finn winces. “Ouch, big brother. That was _bad_.”

“I’m bad at math. And math humor.”

“Well, good to know you’re bad at something, at least. Otherwise the rest of us would really feel sorry for ourselves.”

Kurt shakes his head. “Night, Finn.”

“Night, Kurt.”

 

Puck just lies in his bed for awhile after Kurt leaves, the bedside lamp the only light in the entire apartment. He knows he should get up and fasten the chain lock, but he doesn’t feel like getting up, and anyway, he can do that after Kurt texts him.

 _Home and in the garage. See you at 6:30? xx_

 _Looking forward to it but not the time ;) xx_

 _Definitely. Looks like Finn’s the only other one awake._

 _Pretzel!_

No more texts come after that, and Puck figures Finn waylaid Kurt on the way to the bedroom. Reluctantly, Puck stretches and climbs out of bed, padding to the front door and locking it before taking a detour to the kitchen. He’s pretty sure there should still be a slice or two of that pie left.

When he opens the refrigerator he grins. Yep, two slices. If Puck had thought about it, he would’ve sent one home with Kurt, but then Kurt would have had to smuggle it past Finn, so maybe it works out better that Puck didn’t think about it.

Two slices of chocolate goodness later, Puck ambles back to his room and climbs back under the sheets, this time picking up the letter from his bedside table. He just holds it for a minute, looking at the simple envelope, just his name across the front.

He remembers Rachel saying something, back in November, right after she found out, that she was surprised that Kurt, like her, would not prefer to call Puck ‘Noah’. Puck had just raised his eyebrows and shaken his head. Kurt had never mentioned it, but Puck likes to think it’s because Kurt respects people’s right to decide what they want to be called.

So Puck just looks at the envelope for a minute before he slits open the flap and pulls out the sheets of paper. He unfolds them slowly before starting to read.

 _Puck,_

 _I wanted to write down a few things, things I haven’t said outright. Things that you’ve probably guessed, because if you know me, they’re more than likely obvious – and you do know me. A fact that makes life brighter daily._

Puck pauses and grins, because he knows what Kurt means. He still wants to read what Kurt has to say.

 _So let’s start more than a year ago…_

It takes awhile to read through the entire letter, and then he goes back to the beginning, reading it a second time. He’s trying to decide if he wants to read it a third time right away when his phone buzzes again.

 _Any luck sleeping?_

 _Nope. You?_

 _Talked to Finn and did some work for French tomorrow. Turning in Th translation early_

 _I should prob do history but Vey loves me so much_

 _Should I be jealous? ;)_

 _Haha! Totally_

 _I’ll ask Finn to keep an eye on the two of you from now on…_

Puck laughs out loud, the image of Finn trying to be stealthy and keep an eye out for anything untoward between Puck and Mrs. Vey quite an amusing one.

 _Should we try to sleep K?_

 _Probably. Breakfast is going to come soon._

 _We’ll sleep tomorrow night xx_

 _Exactly xx_

Puck sighs and flips off the lamp, then covers his head with his pillow. At least he can try to sleep. It’s only one night.

 

Breakfast is good, despite the early hour; dealing with the entire glee club for an hour before school, not Puck’s favorite thing, especially not now. If they’d all just shut up and focus on the actual rehearsing, he’d be a lot happier about the whole damn thing. They do get through the entire set three times, shoes on but otherwise not a dress rehearsal. Mike implores them all to hurry to the auditorium during fourth period so that they have a chance of squeezing in three more complete run-throughs, and with that, they all scatter to their classes. Puck notices Santana almost cornering Kurt before walking towards their math class together, and Puck can’t decide if he wants to be a fly on the wall for that conversation or not.

Fourth period rehearsal is more bearable. Part of it is probably because everyone’s more awake, but a big part of it, Puck thinks, is undoubtedly because they’re forced not to get distracted if they want to manage three run-throughs before the bell for lunch. Maybe they all need a time constraint for every rehearsal. Either way, he and Kurt don’t have to worry about it for several days.

In fact, they actually manage to finish ahead of the bell, and Puck has a thought, since they’re about to leave for lunch. “Let me swing by and ask Ms. P if I can just stay off campus. I can use your piano or grab a practice room while you’re in French, and it’s sort of stupid since we have to leave early for Toledo as it is.”

“Good point.” Kurt shrugs and they take a different turn down the hallway, heading towards Ms. P’s office. She’s apparently in the middle of heading somewhere, because she just gives a quick nod of assent before Puck can even finish explaining. “That was easy,” Kurt remarks as he stares after Ms. Pillsbury’s back hurrying down the hall.

“Too easy, almost,” Puck agrees, but he decides not to look the gift in the mouth, or whatever the saying is. When they get to the Nav, he grins. “So what did Santana want this morning?”

“Oh, she wanted to know if the implication Sunday night was true, or if we were all just messing with them.”

“And you told her…?”

“Yes. To both.” Kurt grins. “Not sure if she believed me, mind, but that’s not my problem.”

“Absolutely not,” Puck agrees, nodding.

“So you think there will be a practice room open?”

“Probably.” Puck shrugs. “And if there’s not at first or whatever, I can always just sit somewhere and review terms. Boring as that is.”

“True.” Kurt yawns suddenly as they park. “Bed early tonight.”

“Anything would be earlier than last night.”

“Point,” Kurt acknowledges, sighing. “I don’t even want to think about next week.” He shudders. “Caffeine in the mornings and sleeping pills at night?”

“Something like it.”

There is an empty practice room, so Puck holes up in it with all the stuff from the theory guy plus his piano guy and tries to focus on practicing and reviewing more than _what_ he’s practicing and reviewing for. At least he gets an interview as part of it, and at least the one for Mannes is second, in case he chokes during the first one.

And if nothing else, well, there’s Hunter, and Starbucks. Puck sighs and packs up his stuff when the reminder goes off. Time to drive to Toledo to talk to Dr. Venko.

 

The drive to Toledo is becoming familiar—boringly familiar, but familiar—and Kurt walks in with him, bringing his bag to finish up a few assignments. “If I finish it quicker, we can leave faster, right?”

Puck laughs as he signs in. “Yeah, exactly.” It’s back to the receptionist with the Quinn–haircut, who smiles in a much more sincere way than he can ever remember Quinn smiling.

“You can go on back,” she says.

Puck nods his thanks and walks through the outer door with a quirk of his eyebrow in Kurt’s direction. Kurt just raises his own eyebrow and makes a shooing motion with his hand, and Puck grins.

“Better week this week?” Dr. V says, by way of greeting.

“Definitely,” Puck agrees with a nod, sitting down. “And tomorrow we’re headed to New York, so that’s pretty awesome.”

“Wonderful. That’s excellent news,” Dr. V nods. “Your auditions?”

“Yeah. I swear the guy from OSU–Lima that was helping me with theory? More nervous than I am.”

Dr. Venko chuckles. “That _is_ good news. How have your anxiety symptoms been the last few days with the auditions coming up?”

Puck shrugs. “Pretty good. I think partially ’cause, well. New York.”

“Good. You may also be noticing the BuSpar starting to make some degree of difference by this point, as well, so keep an eye on that. We can talk next week or the week after about any adjustments to the dosage based on how you’re doing on it.”

“Yeah, okay.” Puck nods. “That makes sense. Um, so I ended up staying at Kurt’s until last night.”

Dr. V nods. “Has this caused any tension with Kurt’s family?”

“I sort of thought Burt would send me home earlier, but nah. It’s been really easy, I guess you’d say.”

“And after you’re back from New York?”

“Back home.” Puck shrugs. “It’ll suck for a week or so at least, sleeping I mean. I mean, it’s not like it— it’s just _sleeping_ , for the most part. But we get used to it.”

“I’m sure the transition is hard. Do you want to talk about that a little more?”

 

“Do you want to eat up here?” Kurt asks quietly as they walk out, hand in hand. “I mean, it’s only five. We could just drive back and we might even catch the tail end of whatever Dad and Finn are having.”

“Yeah, we probably should just do that,” Puck acknowledges. “We’re going to want our money tomorrow more than today.”

“Yes.” Kurt beams at him. “I’m so… I don’t even know. Excited doesn’t seem like a strong enough word, but too many seem too… bouncy.”

“You’re the one with the gift for words,” Puck responds, kissing Kurt, feather–light, as they stop behind the Nav. “So you think I can solve your dilemma?” He shakes his head. “I think maybe I’m just like, content.”

“Yeah, that’s a good word,” Kurt agrees, pulling away and unlocking the Nav. “Just a little longer.”

“Can we speed up time now and slow it down starting tomorrow around 8 pm?”

“Sounds like a good plan. If you figure out how, that is.” Kurt looks rueful. “Now. Pretend to interview me about writing.”

Puck groans. “If you say their questions are too hard compared to mine, I just want to state that I predicted it.”

“Noted!”

 

The first thing Puck notices when they walk into Kurt’s house is that it smells like cooked beef. Kurt wrinkles his nose. “Finn cooked dinner.”

“So we’re out of luck, since he probably ate it all?”

“Depends on when he cooked it, I guess.” Kurt shrugs, then raises his voice. “We’re home!”

“There’s food!” Finn hollers back.

“Did you hide it? Or is it easily available?”

Finn appears at the top of the stairs. “It’s on the stove in foil. Well, the potatoes are in the oven in foil.”

“Potatoes and beef.” Kurt raises an eyebrow. “Fancy.”

“They’re au gratin!” Finn seems pleased with himself.

“Can’t win them all,” Kurt responds, almost whimsically, and he shrugs. “Dad home?”

“Yeah, we ate dinner together,” Finn says. “He went up to their room to, I dunno, do something.”

Kurt shrugs. “Ah. Are you exploring the world of trig again?”

“I guess that’s one way to put it.”

“Have you figured out how tall your shadow is, yet?” Puck asks, smirking, as they walk towards the kitchen.

“Taller than yours, dude,” Finn says, heading down the stairs.

“Yeah, that’s always a good answer. ‘Taller than Puck’s’. They’ll love it.”

“Hamburger patties.” Kurt looks perplexed. “There aren’t any buns.”

“No, there weren’t any buns, so we just had the patties and the potatoes,” Finn explains. “Anyway, I thought the potatoes were, like, carby enough, and maybe Burt didn’t need buns, too. I’m trying to help with his food!”

“Well.” Kurt looks over at Puck and shrugs. “Fancy a pseudo–Atkins dinner?”

Puck laughs. “Why not?”

Kurt shrugs again. “Why not indeed.” He loads two plates and hands one to Puck before sitting down. “Are you fully uninfected, Finn?”

“I am not longer in danger of permanent death and disability,” Finn answers, proudly.

“Temporary death still on the table?”

“Well, I mean… there’s still _the girls_ , dude.”

“You know, I read something interesting last week,” Kurt begins. “After we talked about the bullying policy in Lima. Did you know that while it does not include protection for GLBTQ students, it _does_ include a way to make anonymous reports – as well as provisions for cyberbullying?”

“Uh, no. I didn’t know that. I’m still not sure I know that,” Finn says. “Smaller words? Or, I dunno, words that make more sense when you stick them all together.”

“The policy covers bullying done online, and you can report it anonymously,” Puck states, pressing his lips together so he doesn’t laugh.

“Oh, ok,” Finn nods. “Did that happen to somebody?”

Kurt stares at Finn incredulously. “Hello?”

“Huh?”

“You realize that your Facebook Wall is readable to more than just yourself, yes?”

“Yeah, I don’t know how to change the setting thing ever since they changed all the stuff.”

“So we can read everything the girls posted on your Wall, dude.”

“Oh, sorry,” Finn mumbles, looking a little embarrassed. “Yeah, they weren’t, um, real happy with me, I guess.”

“So I’d consider submitting one of those anonymous reports.” Kurt shrugs. “See how the process works, if you will.”

“That’s not bullying, though. I mean, I’m the _quarterback_ , Kurt,” Finn says, shaking his head. “Nobody would call that bullying.”

Kurt puts his forehead in his hand and shakes his head slowly. “Anyone can be bullied, Finn.”

“It’s a pretty legit case.” Puck shrugs.

“I don’t know, I guess I was kind of awful, changing my status and all that,” Finn shrugs. “But if you need to use it for practice or something, that’s ok.”

“It’s unacceptable,” Kurt says crisply. “We sat there in PFLAG last Tuesday and discussed bullying, and then by Friday, they were back at it.”

“I guess they don’t think it’s bullying to say it to _me_?”

“What if they said it to any of the other guys? Would you think it was bullying then? What if, I don’t know. Sam and Mercedes broke up, and suddenly Sam’s Facebook was full of the same stuff? Maybe a crack or two about being poor mixed in, or about his dyslexia?”

“That would be _awful_ ,” Finn says, frowning. “He can’t help that stuff.”

“My point.”

“Maybe it’s a little the same,” Finn shrugs, “but not totally the same. They’re not saying much of anything I haven’t said to myself over the last week or two.”

“Well, you can say whatever you want in your head, dude, but you don’t say it to someone else, you know?” Puck shakes his head. “It’s not right.”

“So, you’re gonna report them anonymously?” Finn asks. “What do you think will happen?”

“Honestly? Nothing,” Kurt admits. “Which will showcase the failure of the policy overall.”

“I don’t want anybody to get in trouble over me. I mean, if this helps fix bigger stuff, sure…”

“It’s unacceptable,” Kurt reiterates. “If they get into trouble, it’s because of their own actions.”

“Ok, Kurt,” Finn says, softly. “If you think that’s what should happen. But it’s anonymous, right? They won’t know it was you? I don’t want them to be like that to you.”

“It’s technically so anonymous that no one will know.” Kurt shrugs.

“Ok, but only because it’s anonymous.”

Kurt nods once, sharply, and Puck knows that Kurt probably would have done something anyway, regardless of what Finn said. There’s being upset for a friend—or sometimes enemy, in Quinn’s case—and then there’s crossing a line. “I honestly don’t expect anything to happen,” Kurt admits. “But people need to learn from the past, not repeat it.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess that’s probably a good idea, not repeating the past.” Finn looks uncomfortable. “I might go up and finish my trig now.”

“Better you than me,” Kurt nods solemnly, despite the fact that Kurt’s already taken trig.

“Better anybody than me, but I’m the one who’s gotta,” Finn sighs, heading back in the direction of the stairs. “Enjoy your potatoes.”

“Thanks, Finn.”

“Yeah, thanks, dude.”

“No problem,” he calls behind himself.

Kurt purses his lips and looks down at his plate with a small shrug. “I can try to find some… I don’t know.”

Puck half–chuckles. “Yeah, I don’t either. Salad?”

“They probably had some too, yeah,” Kurt agrees, getting up and rummaging through the refrigerator. “Ah, there we go. Yes.” He re-emerges with a half empty bag of salad and grabs two bowls before sitting down again.

Puck secretly wonders if Burt has radar or something, because as soon as they both have a mouthful of salad, Burt appears in the doorway.

“You boys packed and ready for tomorrow?” he asks.

“Almost,” Kurt replies with a nod as soon as he swallows. “I’ll finish up in the morning.”

“And you’ve got all your info printed? Your boarding pass and all that other stuff?”

“Everything’s ready,” Kurt confirms. “We can check in online tonight.”

“You can do just about everything online these days,” Burt says, shaking his head.

“It is convenient.” Kurt shrugs. “Hopefully there won’t be any delays.”

“Yeah, I hope not. So, thanks for having that talk with Finn the other night,” Burt says. “I was able to actually eat dinner with him without feeling like I needed to have a drink after. There’s only so much moping I can take.”

Kurt chokes a little on his drink and Puck hurriedly shoves another bite in his own mouth. Kurt coughs for another moment before replying. “Exactly. Best interests of everyone.”

“You’re a good kid,” Burt says, patting Kurt on the shoulder.

“Thanks,” Kurt manages, his smile a little strangled, and Puck nudges him with his foot.

“What time are you leaving tomorrow? You’ll call or text me when you hit the road?”

“By two, I think.” Kurt nods after a second. “Yes, one or the other.”

“You’ll let me know if there’s any trouble with the flight or any issue getting from the airport, right?” Burt looks like he’s about to pull out a list of other places Kurt should check in from.

“Yes, Dad,” Kurt assures him. “We’ll be fine. Getting from the airport to the hotel is relatively easy, just one bus and one train.”

“And you’ll text me before and after your auditions, too?”

“Dad, why don’t I just set myself up on foursquare and you can follow me around the city?” Kurt sighs, like he’s trying really hard not to be exasperated.

“Oh, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Can you set that up on my phone for me before you go?” Burt asks.

“Just download the app, Dad. Foursquare is one word when you search for it.” Kurt shakes his head a little and Puck presses his lips together, utterly amused.

“Who are you gonna be on there? Do I just search on your name?”

“Carole or Finn will show you, okay?”

“Okay, okay. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Really,” Kurt assures him, smiling slightly. “Just don’t panic if more than an hour passes between check-ins, okay?”

“I’ll try my best.”

Kurt shakes his head ruefully. “I suppose that’s all I can ask.”

“Well, I’m gonna go check in with Carole, see if she’s got an ETA yet,” Burt says. “Puck, break a leg at your auditions if I don’t see you. Kurt, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“Thanks,” Puck nods, and Kurt and Puck exchange an amused look as Burt heads back up the stairs. “Keeping tabs on Pretzel,” Puck whispers, and Kurt grins.

“Pretzels are such tricky things!”

 

Puck thinks that they should have found a reason to leave earlier on Wednesday, so they could skip altogether, but since they didn’t manage that, he trudges into history, coffee cup firmly in hand. Finn is already there, texting furiously, but he looks up when Puck sits down.

“Oh, hey, dude,” Finn says, before glancing back down at his phone and texting again. “Sorry. Karofsky. Casey’s back today and we’re trying to set up a schedule for people, so that he doesn’t have to, like, walk around alone for a while.”

“Makes sense,” Puck states, nodding. “Should be plenty of people willing.”

“Yeah, we’re trying to rotate them out so he doesn’t figure it out too fast,” Finn says, looking proud of himself. “Karofsky’s gonna get him class to class for part of the day, but then he’s gotta go to dual enrollment after lunch. Me, Britt, and Rickenbacker are gonna keep an eye on Casey today, Mike, Brown, and Santana are doing it tomorrow. When you guys get back, you can take some shifts, too.”

“Cool.” Puck raises an eyebrow. “I think he’ll notice, though.”

“Probably, but I bet if we try hard enough, he won’t say anything about it,” Finn offers, grinning. “Anyway, it’s as much for Karofsky as Casey. He was kinda freaking out about having to leave him here all _alone_ or whatever when he has to go to dual enrollment.”

Puck chuckles. “Yeah, I bet. And none of us really want to see Karofsky having a panic attack.”

“Definitely not. Anyway, I know how I’d feel if, you know. So if I could make him feel a little better about it…”

“Yeah.” Puck nods. “I get you.”

“You excited about New York?” Finn asks, sticking his phone back in his pocket.

“Yeah,” Puck nods. “Trying not to think about the audition part that much.”

“Bring me back something?” Finn says, hopefully. “I love souvenirs!”

“You and Hannah, man,” Puck replies, grinning and shaking his head.

“Well, you know how us younger siblings are, dude,” Finn returns Puck’s grin. “Sooo needy.”

Puck laughs and drops his voice. “Enjoy it while it lasts, soon you have to be the middle.”

“Hey, dude, I’m gonna be a _big_ brother. It’s _sweet_!”

“Talk to me again when your little sister or brother steals all the toothpaste and ‘paints’ your room with it.”

“Kurt told you about that?”

Puck guffaws. “Yeah, dude. Real masterpiece.”

“I have skills.”

“History is not, however, chief among them,” Puck shakes his head. “You’re just doomed. To repeat it.”

“I don’t think I can repeat the Boxer Rebellion, dude. I don’t even own any gloves.”

 

“Why didn’t we plan better?”

“Plan better?” Kurt raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Two hours to the airport, arrive two hours before the flight, we have to leave by 2:15 or whatever, which makes it easy to skip our two o’clock. But.” Puck pauses and grins. “It makes it hard to figure out what to do about that pesky one o’clock.”

Kurt giggles as he drives out of the parking lot. “Getting to the airport faster isn’t going to make the flight take off any more quickly, you know.”

“Still,” Puck whines. “We should skip. In case it takes a long time to, um. Get stuff done at the bank, and all.”

“We just have to drive through the ATM.”

“Packing! We have to pack!”

“I finished all the packing this morning.”

“Dammit.” Puck sighs. “Why are you so efficient?”

“Well, there is one thing we could do.”

“What?” Puck grins. “What’d we forget?”

Kurt laughs. “Nothing. But we could eat a bigger lunch. Eat a smaller dinner at the airport.”

“That’s true!” Puck nods. “Okay. Big lunch, skip one o’clock.”

“And let’s face it,” Kurt points out. “We’re going to end up being early. So we might as well plan to eat there.”

“Also true,” Puck concedes as they arrive at Kurt’s house. “Okay, so it’s noon. Two hours and we’re out of here.”

Kurt grins. “Still focusing on that rather than what starts tomorrow?”

“Absolutely.”

It doesn’t really take them horribly long to eat lunch, or double-check that everything’s packed, or load the Nav, or drive by the ATM. They head towards Columbus by 1:45, like Puck and Kurt both suspected, a little too giddy with the thrill of _getting out of Lima_ for four nights to worry about what they have to do during the next three days. “I charged my iPad so if you wanted to use that theory app,” Kurt says once they’re about an hour out from the airport. “I know, we’re trying to ignore tomorrow, but.” He stops and shrugs. “We just have to get through the next few days and nothing will be quite so nerve-racking. I hope.”

“Yeah,” Puck agrees with a nod, digging out the iPad despite himself. “I know. Just.” He shakes his head. “We’re going back home.”

“Yes.” Kurt glances at him and smiles. “We are. At least for a few days.”

“It’ll have to be enough until May.”

“And then August.”

“And then August,” Puck agrees. He spends the rest of the drive to the airport feeling pretty good, actually, because he doesn’t forget any of the terms or anything that the app quizzes him on. When they approach the airport, he closes the iPad back up and slides it into Kurt’s bag, then helps him navigate off the freeway and to the parking lot.

“So the farthest lot is the cheapest. The closest shuttle lot is still only $9 a day for covered parking.”

“What about the garage?”

“Seventeen a day.”

“But it’s closer. And we have luggage.”

“The other lots have a shuttle. And we’re early. If we use the farthest lot which is only $4 a day, that’s thirteen extra dollars a day.”

Kurt sighs. “I know. I know, you’re right. How far out is it?”

Puck frowns at the map on his phone as they exit 670. “Maybe two or three miles? But we’ll take the shuttle and be fine. Along with all the luggage.”

“There’s not _that_ much luggage,” Kurt points out. “Two checked bags each, and yes, it’s ridiculous that we have to pay for them, but still. Then my bag, your backpack, and your guitar to carry on. Considering everything, we did quite well.”

“I know,” Puck admits. “But you’re talking to the guy who did Nationals last year with a duffel bag and a guitar.”

“Because you didn’t have to take your competition shoes, tie, _or_ vest,” Kurt points out. “And you didn’t have to impress anyone with your attire except for those few moments of competing.”

“Point.” Puck shrugs as they park. “It’s practically balmy today.”

“Happy Leap Day, have temperatures more than ten degrees above freezing!” Kurt opens the back of the Nav and grabs their luggage, passing one of the rolling pieces to Puck. “It’s a celebration, all right.”

Puck snorts and follows Kurt towards the shuttle pick-up point. “No streamers or balloons. Damn.” Kurt just laughs and climbs onto the shuttle when it arrives. There’s no one else on the shuttle, and the driver is an older woman who spends the eight minute drive asking questions, about where they’re going and why, and oh, they must be so talented.

“You’re lucky to each have a friend going at the same time,” she says warmly. “Your parents must feel better about you traveling that way.”

Puck grins and cuts his eyes towards Kurt. Well, maybe not that much better, but it’s not like Rina or Burt really could have taken the time off, no matter what Burt told Kurt. Or, well, he might’ve, but Kurt would have had to fly in Thursday morning and leave Saturday night, and where would the fun in that be? Puck still would have had to go alone, anyway.

“Yes, it’s very convenient,” Kurt replies to the driver as they reach the drop-off point. “Thank you very much for the ride, ma’am.”

“Good luck in New York!” she says with a cheery smile as they slam the doors shut and walk into the airport.

“She was enthusiastic,” Puck comments wryly. “If a bit oblivious.”

“Yes, I suppose all good friends just happen to put their arms around each other or hold hands.” Kurt laughs as they step up to the counter and check their bags. “Now, we wait.”

“No, now we eat,” Puck suggests.

Kurt snorts and wraps his fingers around Puck’s. “It is one way to kill a couple of hours. Along with removing our shoes and coats and separating all electronics and liquids from the rest of our carry-ons.”

“So much fun.”

Food, security, and Starbucks gets them to within thirty minutes of boarding, at least, and Kurt ends up pacing and demanding that they practice interview questions. It’s not the worst idea ever, but it’s still a bit of a relief to board the plane. It’s small, just two seats on each side, and Kurt and Puck are near the back, no one in the aisle across from them. “Nice,” Puck decides, stretching and flipping the armrests between their seats up. “We can nap.”

“Nap?”

“Do you really want to be responsible and go to bed at a reasonable hour once we actually get there?”

“No,” Kurt states definitively, leaning against Puck’s shoulder. “You’re right. Nap it is.”

Puck wakes up when there’s an announcement that they’re approaching LaGuardia, and he and Kurt peer out the window at all of the lights. If they were standing up, Puck’s pretty sure Kurt would be bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. As it is, their hands are clutching each other and there are definitely, variously, legs shaking a little. “We’re here,” Kurt whispers as the plane starts to descend, the runway lights visible.

“Pretty fucking awesome.”

Their gate isn’t far from their baggage claim, which is handy, and then they spend five minutes figuring out where to go to catch the right bus. It takes thirty minutes on the bus to get to the subway stop, and after they wait for the right train, another ten minutes before they emerge, walking the short distance to the hotel despite the cold and the late time. “This is just perfect,” Kurt whispers, and Puck nods.

“And it’s not quite nine.”

“We check in, ask for a nearby place to grab a bite, unpack quickly and tell our parents we’re here, and then we go out, right?” Kurt grins as they finally approach the hotel.

“Don’t you think we could wait and unpack after we get _back_ from going out?”

“But.” Kurt chews on his bottom lip, looking torn. “I _always_ unpack as soon as I check into a hotel.”

“Well, c’mon, K. We could go up in the Empire State Building _tonight_.”

“That’s true…”

Puck grins. “Our city, remember?”

“Okay, okay,” Kurt gives in with a shake of his head and a little giggle. “Back to being a bad influence, I see.”

Puck guffaws as he holds the door open. “Yeah, not unpacking within an hour, totally the naughtiest thing in years.”

“Welcome to the Excelsior, gentlemen,” a voice interrupts before Kurt can respond. “Checking in?”

“Yes, thank you,” Kurt responds, visibly switching gears as they walk the short distance to the desk in the lobby. “We have a reservation.”

“But you came anyway?” The older man smiles at them. “Last name?”

“It’s listed under Hummel.”

“Ah, yes, I see your reservation here. Classic queen?”

Puck knows that’s just the hotel’s terminology, but _really_ , it’s not his fault he has to turn his head to the side and press his lips together not to laugh. Yeah, that’s it. Classic queen for the queers. He tunes back in to the conversation in time to accept his keycard and follow Kurt to the elevator as they turn down help from the uniformed guy who offers to push their luggage cart for them. Do they really look like they can’t push it?

“Is there anything else you will require tonight?”

Kurt starts to shake his head, then stops. “Yes, actually. We’ll need a taxi in about fifteen minutes.”

“Of course. Enjoy your stay with us.”

“Thanks,” Puck answers with a nod, then they find themselves heading up to the ninth floor. “Nice city,” he breathes out when the doors close.

“Yes,” Kurt agrees. “Such a nice change.” He leans his head on Puck’s shoulder as the elevator heads upwards. “I feel…” He trails off. “I can’t explain it.”

“I know.” Puck nods. “Just alive, differently.”

“Yeah.” The elevator door dings and it’s a short walk to their room. True to his word, Kurt just places their luggage in the floor and mostly empties his bag and pockets. A change of shirts for both of them, a quick dig for gloves, and they head back down to the lobby, where a taxi is in fact waiting out front.

“Hello, I am Alemu,” the cabbie greets them, and Puck thought cabbies were supposed to be surly, but this guy is grinning at them and friendly. “Where would you like to go this evening?”

“Empire State Building, please,” Puck answers, nodding slightly and returning the smile.

“Ah, the city is lovely at night from the top! It is worth the extra money to go all the way up.”

“Is it?” Kurt looks over at Puck briefly. “We weren’t sure.”

“Definitely. And then walk about three blocks, west 35th, between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. Delicious food.”

“Okay.” Puck shrugs. “Yeah, we’ll probably be hungry.”

“How long will you be in New York?”

“For now, just five days. But we’ll be back.”

“Yes, we will,” Kurt agrees as the cab pulls up in front of the Empire State Building. “Thank you very much, Alemu.”

“Enjoy your view and your visit!” he replies, taking the fare from Puck’s hand with another bright grin before driving off, almost before they close the door.

“I can’t believe there’s still so many people here.”

“It’s not that late.”

“True.” Kurt slides under Puck’s arm as they walk in and then through the security line. “No musical instruments.”

“That’s a little weird.”

“No costumes, either. In case… I really have no idea,” Kurt confesses.

“I don’t either.” Puck shrugs as he walks through the scanner. “I sort of get the no sports equipment. But do people try to drop musical instruments off the building?”

“You’d be surprised, kid,” one of the security personnel barks out, laughing slightly as he gestures for Puck to proceed and Kurt to take his place.

“What a waste of perfectly good instruments,” Puck can’t help but grouse, shaking his head, and then Kurt joins him.

“Dork,” Kurt teases him, giggling a little.

“It’s true!” Puck defends himself. “You know it is.”

“Didn’t say it wasn’t. Just saying that you’re the one who thought of it.”

“Yeah, well.” Puck mock–frowns at Kurt as they follow the flow of people. “Oh, we can’t forget to grab Finn another shot glass here.”

Kurt laughs. “We should get one everywhere we go this weekend. He’ll have eight or ten by the time we get home.”

“Mannes, MSM, Marymount, Empire State Building, those museums, you think our hotel has a gift shop with shot glasses?” Puck grins. “Then he won’t have to refill the same one over and over again.”

“Very true.” Kurt falls silent as they reach the observatory, and they exchange a grin as they walk outside. It’s windy and despite their coats and layers, Kurt immediately shivers. Puck wraps an arm around Kurt’s shoulders and pulls him close.

“Cold, little lizard?”

“It’s still February,” Kurt points out, shivering again.

“Only for an hour or two.” Puck shakes his head as they take in the view. “Look at this, K. It’s, damn. Just.” It’s beautiful and glittering and whatever it takes, Puck will do it, to be here, to live here. He wraps his other arm around Kurt as well, Kurt’s hands folding up to rest on Puck’s arms.

“Yes,” Kurt breathes, leaning against Puck. “It is.” Eventually they move, circling the building and then paying the additional fee to go up to the 102nd floor, where they take in the city again. “It’s nice,” Kurt finally speaks again as they head back to the gift shop in search of a shot glass, “but I don’t feel the need to come here again in May, if the others do.”

“No,” Puck agrees, selecting a shot glass with a rendering of the Empire State Building on it. “Me either. We’re going to have other stuff to do, though.”

“Yes.” Kurt looks at the shot glass thoughtfully, shrugs, then nods. “All right. Check out that restaurant, then head back to the hotel? We don’t want to be out _too_ late the first night.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Puck concedes, and they walk slowly from the Empire State Building in the direction the cabbie had suggested. There are a fair number of people on the street, and Puck can’t help but contrast it with how few there would be on any street in Lima at the same time of night. “The Ethiopian place, you think?”

Kurt shrugs. “Looks busy enough, anyway. I’ve never had Ethiopian food before.”

“You think I have?” Puck snorts. “We can try it, anyway. The food in Columbus feels like a long, long time ago.”

“Very true. Maybe they have some kind of sampler; we could share it.”

“Good idea.” Puck grins as Kurt soaks in the warmth of the restaurant appreciatively. “Better?”

“Yes. It’s warmer than Chicago here, at least, though.”

“Definitely, yes.” Ethiopian food, Puck decides, is sort of deceptive. It sounds simple but it’s pretty spicy and overall, not bad at all. “Every once in a while,” he finally decides at the end of the meal, and Kurt nods.

It takes them a few minutes to figure out hailing a taxi, and Puck feels ridiculously inept. “We’ll be better at it by Sunday,” Kurt whispers, and Puck nods, because yeah, that’s true. They’ll be ace at it, and the subway system, too. “And we should use that fitness center in the morning.”

Puck wrinkles his nose but nods. “Okay, so. It’s like a Tuesday.”

Kurt laughs. “Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Later than a work day, not as late as Friday.”

“Where’s breakfast?”

“I’ll let you find a place while I’m in the bathroom.” Kurt yawns. “I know we napped, but I’m still kind of exhausted.”

“It’s getting late,” Puck agrees, kissing Kurt’s temple softly.

By the time Kurt emerges from the bathroom, Puck is under the covers, frowning at Kurt’s iPad. “Any luck?”

“I think I found a place, but it’s all the way on 73rd. Otherwise it’s pretty much Starbucks that serves breakfast.”

“Oh, well. Um.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah. Anyway, it’s right down Columbus.” He gestures to the west side of the hotel. “The first cross street down that way. So not too far. And then I have to take the 1 train to the Columbia stop.”

“How long should that take?”

“Twenty-five minutes, supposedly.” Puck shrugs. “So I guess I should aim for forty-five minutes. Just in case.”

“Okay.” Kurt nods, then yawns. “Bedtime now?”

“I think so.” Puck sets the iPad down and turns off the lamp on his side. “Long days ahead.” He yawns as well, chuckling ruefully as Kurt slides under the covers and turns off his own lamp.

“We’re going to be great,” Kurt whispers before kissing Puck softly.

“Night, blue eyes.”

“Night, baby.”

 

Kurt really does get them up early—six am—to head to the fitness center. They haven’t managed to work out at all since before they got the flu, so Puck is pretty sure that it’s going to suck. And it does, but at least there aren’t that many people watching the ridiculousness of two eighteen-year-olds doing so bad on a fucking treadmill.

“It’s just the flu, right?”

“I fucking hope so,” Puck mutters, shaking his head as they head back to their floor. “That was sad.”

“Well, even if we didn’t have a secondary infection, it was still a respiratory ailment.” Kurt purses his lips, like he’s trying to convince himself, too.

“Yeah.”

“Tomorrow will be better.”

“What’s the schedule again?” Puck pushes the door open and resists the urge to flop back onto the bed. “I know I have to be there at 9:30 and I’m supposed to be done between 11:30 and 12:15.”

“I have to be at Marymount by 12:30; I thought I’d head over around eleven and eat lunch over there, because I have no idea what it’s like getting from West Side to East Side. Yet,” he amends, heading towards the shower.

“You maybe should take a taxi one of these times?” Puck suggests, stripping off his own workout clothes and stepping close behind Kurt under the warm spray.

“Hmm. Maybe,” Kurt concedes. “I might in the morning, because of the early hour.”

“Good point.” Puck wraps his arms around Kurt and kisses his neck.

“Don’t start something we can’t finish,” Kurt argues weakly, tilting his head.

“It’s not even seven yet.”

“And we still have to walk to breakfast and eat it.” Kurt’s protests have even less heft to them. “And I have to. Get dressed.”

Puck grins and kisses the spot behind Kurt’s ear. “You have a couple of hours after breakfast to get fancy, blue eyes.”

“True.”

“And we’ll be happy for our auditions.”

“Oh. God.” Kurt moans as Puck trails his fingertips down the length of Kurt’s cock. “Yes, okay, just don’t stop doing that.”

“Which?” Puck flicks his tongue over the same spot behind Kurt’s ear and lets his hand curl around Kurt at the same time.

“Any. All.” Kurt turns in Puck’s arms and closes his mouth over Puck’s. Puck grins against Kurt’s mouth and tightens his arms, holding Kurt against him.

“Yeah?” Puck breathes as he pulls back from their kiss. “I can manage something like that.” He runs his thumb over Kurt’s lips and then kisses them again, lightly, before sliding onto his knees, burying his face against Kurt.

“Ohh,” Kurt exhales softly and runs his hands over Puck’s head, and really, Kurt must’ve guessed somehow that Puck’s hair would grow out to the perfect length by the time auditions rolled around. Puck slides his tongue over the base of Kurt’s cock, resting one cheek against Kurt and listening to his soft murmurs.

Then Puck moves his lips slowly along Kurt’s length before taking him into his mouth, Kurt whimpering as Puck takes in more of Kurt’s erection. Puck moves slowly, gripping at Kurt’s hips and ignoring the water that occasionally drips down into his eyes.

“God, so good, baby.” Kurt’s hands rest on Puck’s head, urging him forward, and Puck opens his mouth a little wider, letting Kurt move deeper into his mouth. “Just want to stay here with you.”

Puck moans a little around Kurt, because he knows exactly what Kurt means, and fuck, this? This is everything, it’s not about spending the whole day together—they’ll be spending more time apart than together, until Saturday—it’s that they’re starting the day together and coming back together at the end of it, and yeah, Puck moves a little faster and grips Kurt just a little tighter. Kurt’s hips jerk forward and Puck hollows his cheeks, urging Kurt mentally to let go, and then Kurt does, coming into Puck’s mouth, and Puck grins again as he slowly releases Kurt and then stands up, Kurt pulling him into a deep kiss.

“Is that a good luck charm?” Kurt whispers, and Puck laughs.

“I don’t know. Maybe so.”

“In that case.” Kurt’s hand reaches between them, tugging on Puck gently for a moment before curling his fingers more tightly around Puck’s erection, swiping his thumb over the tip. “You should have one, too.”

Puck thrusts into Kurt’s hand and closes his lips over Kurt’s, sweeping his tongue over Kurt’s lips and then into Kurt’s mouth, wrapping his hand around the back of Kurt’s head as he deepens the kiss. Kurt moves his hand over Puck slowly, grip firm, and Puck whimpers a little into Kurt’s mouth as Kurt speeds up.

Kurt’s other hand slides slowly down Puck’s back, resting on his ass before letting one finger circle around Puck’s entrance. Puck pushes back against it slightly, and Kurt’s finger slips inside at the same time he tightens his hand around Puck’s erection. Puck comes, his cry swallowed by Kurt’s mouth, and they lean against the shower wall for a moment.

“Good luck charm, hmm?” Puck muses, grinning, and this time Kurt laughs.

“Absolutely.”

 

Kurt insists on approving of Puck’s outfit, which doesn’t surprise Puck at all, and he laughs when they’re about to head out the door.

“I think you bought me at least half of this outfit.”

“Well, I know I haven’t bought you underwear,” Kurt says slowly, pulling the door closed and then taking Puck’s hand as they walk to the elevator. “I also haven’t bought you any shoes, or socks.”

“But you did buy this sweater.” Puck pushes the button and grins. “And the hat. And the coat. And the gloves.”

“So I might be a little overzealous when it comes to clothing of an appropriate warmth.” Kurt beats Puck to the button as they enter the elevator. “At least you don’t have to worry about being cold.”

“That’s true,” Puck concedes, tugging Kurt closer and kissing him gently just before the doors open. “And now we get to test the warmth–giving properties of our clothing.” Puck frowns. “Holy shit, I’m starting to talk like you.”

Kurt giggles as they nod to the man behind the desk and walk onto the sidewalk, turning right towards Columbus. It’s not a bad walk, about ten minutes, before they spot the place Puck found for breakfast. “So why here?”

“Best idea for breakfast ever,” Puck responds, grinning. “Crepes, and one of the filling options? Chocolate sauce. Also, one of the sides? Bacon.”

“Bacon and chocolate, yes,” Kurt laughs. “I can see why you picked it.”

“I know!” Puck laughs along with Kurt.

“So what did you think I would want?”

“Um. Scones Benedict or a savory crepe.”

“Probably,” Kurt acknowledges, and then they walk in, clearly the first patrons of the morning. The meals goes a little more quickly than Puck would like, and not just because the chocolate sauce and strawberry–filled crepes are every bit as good as he had hoped.

“You’re going to do fine,” Kurt says quietly as they finish their coffee, lingering over their empty plates. “Remember what you told me? The actual exam isn’t that long. You have to sit through an information session first, then a question and answer session and tour.”

“Yeah, I know.” Puck sighs. “How did I end up being the only one out of the entire glee club that has to take extra _tests_ for college?”

“Bad luck?” Kurt hazards with a shrug as they pay their server and leave a tip. “You know where you’re going?”

“Yep.” Puck waves his phone slightly. “Hey, did you remember to check in on foursquare?”

Kurt snorts. “I did. This is a little ridiculous.” Kurt steps close and pulls Puck into a tight hug, kissing him briefly before releasing him. “I’ll see you at 4:30 at MoMA?”

“Absolutely.” Puck grins. “You’re going to rock that interview. I’ll call you when I’m done, anyway.”

“Okay.” Kurt nods and steps backward. “Kill it!”

Puck laughs. “I’m going to try!”

The walk to the subway station isn’t long, but the subway is crowded. The walk from the subway is supposed to be a little longer than the first walk, but Puck backtracks to a Starbucks and walks the remainder of the way to MSM nursing a grande Americano.

Thankfully, there are signs directing Puck where to go, but he’s startled by the cheering greeting at the sign-in table. New York, in his experience, hasn’t been so… beaming.

“Welcome to Manhattan School of Music! Name, please!”

“Noah Puckerman.”

“Puckerman, Puckerman… oh here you are!” Before Puck can register much of anything, he’s holding a folder with a card paperclipped to the front, as well as a laminated name-tag. “Now, your parent or parents…” the man trails off at last, looking confused.

“It’s just me.”

“But who did you travel with? Are you here alone?” The man brightens. “You must be from the City.”

“Nope,” Puck answers, just as cheerfully. “Ohio. And yeah, it’s just me.”

“Oh, well. All right.” The man is a little flustered. “In that case, then, you may want to— hold on. Marie! Marie!” he raises his voice, calling out to someone down the hall, apparently. A small grey-haired woman approaches after a moment and they have a hurried conversation before the man turns back to Puck. “The only thing that you may want to be sure to catch up on, so to speak, is the financial aid information. After your tour, tell one of us with a name badge from the School that you’d like to speak with someone about financial aid because you don’t have a parent attending. All right?”

“Sure.” Puck nods and starts edging away from the table, down the hall to the room indicated for the ‘Prospective Student Pre–Exam Information Session’. The room is sparsely populated, which Puck guesses makes sense; most of their applicants probably aren’t composition majors or theory majors. Still, MSM is about twice as big as Mannes, which means either some of these people didn’t apply to Mannes, or it’s going to be even harder to get in there.

Puck takes a seat near the middle of a row, noting that there are still at least ten minutes; more people will probably show up.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, a dark-haired girl sits down beside him. “Hi. I’m Allison.” She leans forward to look at Puck’s name-tag. “And you’re Noah. Great, we’re introduced.” She smiles smugly. “So where are you from, Noah?”

“Ohio,” Puck replies slowly, not sure what to make of the girl.

“Ohio? Seriously? Like, Cincinnati with the zoo, or Cleveland with the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame?”

Now Puck laughs. “Try two hours from Cincinnati, and three from Cleveland. Lima, Ohio.”

“Oh, wow! Is it like, farmland?” She looks puzzled. “I’m from outside the City.” She shrugs, almost self-deprecatingly. “And are you a theory major or a composition major?”

“Not farmland, we’re the biggest city for an hour in any direction.” Puck rolls his eyes at the thought of Lima being a big city. “Composition. You?”

“Also composition.” She tilts her head. “So, composition, Lima, Ohio, Noah. To review, I’m composition, outside the City, Allison.”

“I forget names. Seriously. I finally remembered the name of this freshman, who comes to every single PFLAG meeting, has since the beginning of the year, and I remembered his name last meeting.”

“It’s February!”

“I know.” Puck shrugs. “I don’t remember names well. Of stuff, either. Like pierogies, it took me forever to remember what they were called.”

“That’s a damn shame.” She grins suddenly, not just a little smile. “So Noah, I think we’re going to be great friends. Where else are you applying?”

“Mannes.” Puck shrugs. “I mean, I applied to Hunter and got in, but that’s just a back-up plan.”

“I’m applying to Mannes, too. I think it’s my top choice,” she admits, lowering her voice. “And also Boston Conservatory.”

“A friend of mine, that’s his top choice. For dance, though. His audition was last weekend, he thinks it went pretty well, he said.”

“Nice! So—” Whatever else Allison is going to say is cut off as the same man from the table enters the room, the grey-haired woman named Mary or Marie or Margery with him.

“Welcome to all of you!” he begins, and Puck shakes his head a little as the man goes through a spiel about MSM before launching into directions for their theory exam. Puck pulls out his phone and flips it to vibrate before sending Kurt a quick text.

 _I think I just accidentally became Noah_

It takes less than a minute for Kurt to respond.

 _Accidentally?? Do I want to know? I’m sure you could correct them_

 _Nametags. Idk. Still thinking xx_

 _Okay. Kill it, baby xx_

“Who are you texting?” Allison hisses while the man gets some kind of short presentation set up.

“Boyfriend,” Puck answers shortly, voice low. Nosy thing.

“Ohh, that answers that question.”

“Which question?” Puck frowns.

“Gay or taken. Clearly, both!”

Puck snorts. “Yeah.”

“All right, let’s begin our presentation now! On this first screen, you will see the answer booklet, much like the one in your folders.”

It takes ten minutes for the guy to explain the procedure and then have them move so that they’re sitting every other seat. “Ridiculous,” Puck mutters, accepting his test booklet from the guy next to him and then passing the stack along towards Allison.

“You have forty minutes! Begin.”

The test is more or less what Puck was expecting, which he figures is a good sign, and he isn’t sure what it means when he finishes with four minutes left. He shrugs and looks back at the analysis section, because it would just be like fucking analysis to trip him up.

When the tests and answer booklets are all collected, they’re herded out of the room for a ‘combination tour and Q&A session’, and Puck finds Allison still next to him.

“So your boyfriend.” She stops and is clearly waiting for him to fill in something.

Puck takes a guess at what she’s waiting for. “Kurt.”

“Your boyfriend, Kurt, he’s back in Bean, Ohio?”

Puck snorts. “No, he’s here. Auditions at Pace and Marymount Manhattan. We’re here until Sunday.”

“Nice. Auditions for?”

“Theatre, musical theatre, all that stuff.” Puck shrugs. “You know, queers taking over,” he adds with a slight grin.

There’s a huffing noise behind him, and Puck turns to look at the dude who huffed. His name-tag declares him to be Peter. “Problem?” Puck asks mildly.

“That is so offensive.” Peter shakes his head and sighs, patronizingly. “I really thought we were past such attitudes, but I suppose in places like—” he pauses, looking Puck up and down. “The south, perhaps, or the midwest, they’re still common.”

Puck snorts. “You have a problem with the word ‘queer’, I take it?”

“Yes, I do. As a gay person, it troubles me greatly.” His chin is up a little, like he’s just waiting for something.”

“Mmm. So you’ve never met a gay person who was – what’s the word? Reclaiming. Reclaiming the word ‘queer’?”

“No!”

“Congratulations, now you have.”

Peter splutters for a second but before he can say anything, the tour guide starts talking about something, and he falls silent. When they start to walk again, Allison grins briefly at Puck before turning back to Peter. “He was talking about his boyfriend, you dunce. But you got the midwest part right, at least.”

“I—” Peter looks like he’s swallowed a lemon. “I… I see.”

Puck shrugs. “Keep an open mind, dude.”

After the conclusion of the tour, Puck does as instructed and ends up getting roped into a nap–worthy twenty minute lecture on financial aid, applying for it, and scholarships, all of which Puck’s either already read online or already done, so the effect is that he feels like he lost twenty minutes. It’s not quite noon yet when he leaves, though, so he pulls out his phone and calls Kurt.

“I’m finally free.”

Kurt laughs. “Finally?”

“They were alarmed that I was here without a parent and had me listen to a twenty minute one–on–one lecture on financial aid, which was all stuff I already knew.”

“Oh, that does sound exciting. How’d it go?”

“Pretty good, I think.” Puck shrugs even though Kurt can’t see it. “The information session was kind of boring and people ask really dumb questions, but.”

“Not everyone reads the website, I guess.”

“Something like that. You over on the other side of the park already?”

“Yes, trying to decide where I want to eat lunch. Are you going back to the hotel?”

“Just to leave my backpack. Thought I’d walk around for a little bit, find a place for lunch.”

“Makes sense.” Kurt falls silent for a moment, then sighs. “I feel ridiculously nervous. Ridiculous because, well, it’s an _interview_ and a portfolio review. It’s not like I can say I should have practiced more.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re going to do great, blue eyes.”

“I hope so.” Puck can practically hear Kurt sticking his tongue out at him, and he chuckles for a moment.

“I’ll see you at 4:30. Be good.”

“I’m always good!”

 

Kurt spends longer than necessary fretting over what to wear, finally deciding on a pink and brown ensemble with dark brown coat. The bus trip towards Marymount Manhattan goes well, better than Kurt expected, and he thinks that maybe they will have mastered public transit by the end of the weekend after all. Maybe.

Puck calls just after Kurt disembarks, and then Kurt focuses on finding a place to eat lunch, rejecting three Italian places, Japanese, Chinese, and a vegan deli before settling on a small cafe with hot sandwiches. Kurt has to work hard not to review his portfolio one more time, or nervously text someone – anyone. Instead he checks in at the location on foursquare, absently thinking that it would be quite amusing if he checked in at every place he passes on the walk around the block to the college.

He hadn’t considered that it would be considered strange to arrive without a parent. Of course, thinking about it now, Kurt can understand the expectation that parents might not send their child to New York City alone, but then – isn’t that what they’ll be doing in a few short months, anyway? Kurt mentally shrugs and squares his shoulders, bag in hand, and walks into the indicated hall.

“Are you here for the interviews and portfolio reviews?” a slight woman asks from behind a desk, sounding a little bit bored.

“Yes, ma’am,” Kurt nods, and she gestures to a list of names. Kurt circles his name, as the directions say, then initials another place on the sheets. He takes the proffered packet and walks in the direction that the woman indicates, turning into a relatively large classroom where other applicants are sitting, some of them bouncing nervously in place.

Kurt takes a seat next to one of the ones who isn’t bouncing, a blond who looks friendly enough, if a bit purposefully wrinkled and disheveled. Kurt inclines his head as he pulls off the name-tag on his packet and peels off the backing.

The blond guy peers at Kurt’s name tag and blinks his eyes slowly, reminding Kurt a bit of Brett, except this guy—and Kurt looks over quickly, reading ‘Zachary’—is much less smelly and better coifed, as well.

“You’re here for the interview,” Zachary states.

“Aren’t all of us?” Kurt responds. “But it’s several different concentrations. I think.”

“Yeah, but… I think I’m under-dressed now.”

Oh. Kurt laughs. “I always look like this. Well, not _this_ this. Different outfits. I forwent a scarf or tie today.”

“You forwent something. Wow. I felt like I was doing a good job putting on slacks instead of jeans,” Zachary says.

“That sounds like something my brother would say, actually,” Kurt replies, amused. “It’s really for the best he barely had to dress up at all on his college visits.”

“Twins?”

Kurt can’t help but laugh for a minute. “No. Technically he’s my stepbrother. He’s going to Wisconsin next year. Football.”

“That’s cool, that’s cool,” Zachary says, nodding his head. “So, which concentration are you going for?”

“Writing for the stage. Technically speaking, I’m hoping I can manage both it and the performance, with the musical theatre minor, but.” Kurt shrugs. “I have a hard time making up my mind. You?”

“Theatre studies, but I’ll take what I can get.”

“Jack of all trades?”

“Singing, dancing, trained stage–monkey,” Zachary says. The line sounds like one he’s used before.

“Do you wear a monkey costume?” Kurt can’t resist asking, trying his best to keep a straight face.

“Well, there was this one time where our show choir director dressed all of us up like circus animals. It was pretty terrible.” Zachary shakes his head. “I may or may not have been a monkey. The monkey may or may not have been wearing a little fez. That’s all I’m saying about that.”

“Please tell me it was for an Invitational and not Sectionals or Regionals,” Kurt shakes his head. “There’s a _reason_ I do our costumes.”

“Regionals… and we won anyway. Our competition that year was a school for the blind and some brand new group whose coach was really a German professor trying to earn a little extra money running the club on the side.”

“Oh, dear.” Kurt shakes his head. “Let’s just say the costumes that our director picked out last year for the girls for Nationals—without my input, I should add—looked like lingerie.”

“Wait,” Zachary says, looking at Kurt strangely. “You were at Nationals last year? Who’s your group?”

“Oh, dear.” Kurt sighs. “Remember I mentioned my brother? He’s about six feet four inches and generally sings lead. Our usual lead female vocalist is five feet—in heels—and they capped off our opening number with a bit of unscripted… choreography, if you will.”

“Oh man. Oh, _man_. New Directions, right? I was there! I saw that!” Zachary looks introspective for a moment. “It was sweet. Kinda hot. Horribly unprofessional, but also sweet and a little hot. My girlfriend was pissed at me for _days_ over that.”

“She wanted a sweeping gesture of affection as well?”

“Why won’t you kiss _me_ like that on stage?” Zachary says, in a high–pitched voice with a hint of a Spanish accent.

“Santana was livid. She was convinced that was why we were twelfth and not in the top ten. Which, she might have been right.” Kurt shrugs. “Who can say? It’s a risk doing original songs, to begin with.”

“They sounded great,” Zachary says. “Choreography seemed a little…”

“Last minute? Rushed?” Kurt supplies. “I know. Hazard of our director letting us wait until we got to the City to finish our songs.”

“Ouch. Is he new?”

“We ask ourselves that constantly.”

“So, New Directions, you guys are, what? Indiana or some place?”

“Ohio. The bustling metropolis of Lima, in fact.”

“Good times,” Zachary says with a polite nod. “Scottsdale, Arizona, myself. Lots of art. Lots and lots of art. Artists, just, everywhere.”

“There’s an art gallery in Lima. _An_. We have a great farmers’ market in the summer, though.” Kurt lifts one shoulder, almost shrugging. “Also, a lot of snow.”

“We have cowboy stuff and cultural festivals. Very impressive. So’s the heat, by the way, also very impressive.”

“That sounds heavenly, actually. My brother and my boyfriend both think I’m a reptile.”

“Vestigial tail?”

“Thankfully, no. Just a propensity towards cold— oh, and the shedding of skin periodically is a bit of a nuisance.”

“So what you’re saying is, I shouldn’t put you down on my housing form as a potential roommate? Because this shedding situation sounds rather dire.”

Kurt laughs. “No, it’s best if I keep the shedding to those who are already trained to handle it. Anyway, I’m hopefully going to end up over on the other side of the park. Assuming Mannes is accommodating with Noah’s application.” He wrinkles his nose slightly. ‘Noah’ feels _weird_.

“Noah is… boyfriend?”

“Yes,” Kurt nods. “Composition. Mannes is his first choice.”

“A writer and a composer. Hmm. You two sound like good people to know,” Zachary says. “Hope both of you break a leg and then give me some work some day.”

Kurt smiles slightly. “That would be a win for all of us, wouldn’t it?”

“I do make a fantastic singing monkey.”

 

The interview, Kurt decides, went well. He doesn’t know if it was, in fact, his impeccable appearance, or perhaps his well-organized portfolio, but the two interviewers seemed predisposed towards him from the moment he entered the room, so Kurt will take what he can get.

The trip to MoMA takes twenty minutes, just as his phone predicted, including a walk to the first train, a walk between trains, and a walk from the last stop to the museum. He checks in on foursquare at all seven subway stops that he passes through, plus MoMA, as soon as he arrives, then shoots a text to Puck.

 _Got through early. Going to check out Diego Rivera since I know you wanted to do the design ones and the city one._

 _K K Getting on the train now should be there in twenty or so. Howd it go? xx_

 _Really well, surprisingly well. xx_

 

Puck grins when he sees the back of Kurt’s head, tilted to the side as he considers the mural in front of him. He slows himself and steps quietly behind Kurt, wrapping his arms around Kurt’s waist and resting his chin on Kurt’s shoulder. “Hey.”

“Hi.” Kurt twists slightly and grins. “Good afternoon?”

Puck nods. “Yeah, it was.” He kisses the tip of Kurt’s nose and then briefly presses their lips together. “So we have a good four hours before our reservations, right?”

“More than we expected,” Kurt nods.

“Least we can take our time.” Puck wraps his fingers with Kurt’s and then lets Kurt tell him where they’re headed next. That works for the first exhibit, because the two halls are next to each other, but after that, Kurt hands Puck the museum map and Puck navigates. “It’s just like we’re driving,” Puck teases, and Kurt laughs.

“Oh, shush. I used public transit without issue. Granted, my phone told me exactly where to go,” Kurt concedes.

“I walked around the 70s and the 80s both this afternoon,” Puck changes the subject.

“And?”

“The higher up you go, the less… I don’t know. It seemed different. The 70s, though. I liked. A lot.”

Kurt nods. “I liked what we saw this morning. I walked back up 10th Avenue instead of Columbus. I found a bakery with to–die–for cupcakes. Seriously, I have to take you there and get you one of their chocolate confections.”

“You had me at chocolate,” Puck grins. “I know that to an extent, we’ll have to go with what we can find, but.”

“No, we do better to know where we want to go,” Kurt agrees, nodding. “And if we start looking with an agent when we’re here in May, we have a better chance of finding the right place.”

“You think an agent could FaceTime a tour with us if necessary?”

“Why not?” Kurt grins. “I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first time.”

Puck laughs. “Good point.”

The museum is interesting, Puck decides, more so than he was expecting, though he thinks the most interesting part of the entire affair might be the film collection and the film screenings, which they don’t have the opportunity to participate in right then. That is, that’s the most interesting thing until 8 o’clock arrives and they sit down to a very expensive meal.

“I still don’t know what all of these things are,” Puck announces in a low voice as their server leaves to get their drinks. “But I know what ‘chocolate’ and ‘pork’ are, so that’s two courses taken care of.” He grins, knowing Kurt will laugh, and Kurt does. “Oh, I know what ‘mushrooms’ are, too, and ‘ravioli’.”

“You’re all set, then,” Kurt says wryly. “I think I’m going to go with the greens, foie gras, chorizo–crusted cod, and fig tart, myself.”

“You’re breaking my heart. How can a fig tart be dessert? It doesn’t say a word about chocolate, unless ‘pignoli’ is European for chocolate.”

“Italian, and pine nut, so no,” Kurt admits, shrugging slightly as they indicate their choices to the server, who nods once and then glides away, bringing their first course within a matter of minutes.

 

“I could get used to this,” Kurt says softly as they walk the block and a half to the subway stop and wait for the B train. “Obviously not spending quite that much on dinner every night,” he concedes. “But.”

“No, I know,” Puck agrees. “But fuck, it was good.”

“It was.” Kurt nods. “And it’s not so late tonight.”

“No,” Puck agrees, dropping his voice as they board the train, stepping close to Kurt as the train starts to move, letting his lips brush against Kurt’s ear. “It’s not that late at all. Not when we’re getting a quick breakfast in the morning.” He runs his hand down Kurt’s arm, and Kurt presses a little closer.

“Are you suggesting something, No–ah?” Kurt asks, drawing out the ‘Noah’ so it’s sing-songy.

Puck snorts. “You’re going to tease me about that for years.”

“Absolutely,” Kurt agrees.

“And yes, I am definitely suggesting something, as you put it.” Puck grins. “I didn’t think you’d object.”

“No,” Kurt says slowly. “But we still have to walk. From our stop to the hotel.”

“It’s not that far,” Puck insists, wrapping his arm around Kurt’s waist. Kurt leans into the embrace and turns his head minutely, just enough for Puck to look straight into his eyes.

“That’s true,” Kurt whispers. “How long is that walk again?”

“Just a couple of minutes,” Puck manages to reply as the doors slide open, and they head up the escalator, taking them like stairs before hurrying down the street to the hotel. The desk guy nods at them pleasantly and asks if they need a wake-up call for the same time, which Kurt answers affirmatively, even though Puck thinks they could sleep another half-hour.

When they close the door to their room, Kurt removes his coat immediately, and Puck slides his hands under the sweater vest Kurt’s wearing. He makes a sad noise as he nuzzles at Kurt’s neck, working the vest upwards.

“I know,” Kurt says breathlessly. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

Puck grins against the hollow of Kurt’s throat, licking it with his tongue before pulling back to remove the vest. It doesn’t take either of them long to get the other bare from the waist up, and then they pause, as if by mutual agreement, to remove their shoes and socks before walking over to the bed, Kurt pushing Puck back and then crawling on top of him. Puck reaches for the waistband of Kurt’s pants, unfastening the button and then slowly unzipping them, palming Kurt’s erection for a moment before pushing the pants and Kurt’s underwear down his thighs.

Kurt shimmies out of his pants, letting them hit the floor as he leans back over Puck’s body and kisses him deeply, tongue running alongside Puck’s own. Kurt’s hand toys with the top of Puck’s jeans before unfastening them, and Puck grins against Kurt’s lips when Kurt stops for a moment, realizing Puck’s been commando all evening.

Kurt grinds down against Puck and Puck thrusts up, hooking his thumbs in his waistband and wiggling his jeans slowly down, Kurt tugging on the fabric. Then Kurt stops with an intake of breath. “ _Ohhh_.”

Puck can’t help but smirk up at him a little. “I didn’t _just_ walk around this afternoon.”

“No,” Kurt agrees softly. “ _Fuck_ , baby.”

“You seemed to find the idea interesting.”

“I did. I do.” Kurt’s hand ghosts over Puck, and Puck bites at his lip, the skin sensitive and exposed. “I, um. _Really_ do.”

“Why don’t you show me?” Puck suggests, rolling his hips upward, and Kurt grins almost wickedly.

“Oh, I can definitely do that,” Kurt purrs, and he leans back down, forcing his tongue into Puck’s mouth and reaching for the bottle perched on the bedside table. His other hand runs over Puck again, and he pulls back as he slicks two fingers. “Did it hurt?” he asks curiously.

Puck shrugs. “Stung. Not bad, though.” He gasps a little as Kurt’s fingers push inside him. “Not so bad I wouldn’t do it again.”

“Oh.” Kurt’s fingers almost jump, going deeper inside Puck. “That’s um.” He exhales. “God, Puck. Want inside you so bad.”

“Yes,” Puck agrees, tightening around Kurt’s fingers. “Now, blue eyes.”

“Yes, yes,” Kurt nods, withdrawing his fingers and coating his cock with a thin layer of the lube before entering Puck in one slow but steady motion. “Oh, fuck, yes,” Kurt pants when he’s fully inside Puck, and Puck nods.

“So. Fuck.” Puck shakes his head. “K.”

“Shh, shh, I know,” Kurt murmurs, snapping his hips repeatedly, the motion still relatively slow as he slides in and out of Puck’s entrance. Kurt leans over him, pressing his mouth to Puck’s chest and lower neck repeatedly, his abdomen trapping Puck’s erection and teasing it.

Puck angles his hips up, pushing to meet Kurt’s forward motion, and tilts his head back. His hands grab at the sheets, clenching them tight between his fingers, and he uses his legs to pull Kurt closer, urging him to increase his speed. Kurt’s hips move faster, driving deeper into Puck, and Puck squeezes around him, grinning slightly at the noise it elicits.

“So good,” Kurt murmurs, straightening and wrapping one hand around Puck’s leaking erection, smearing the fluid over the tip and down the side with his thumb before establishing a steady rhythm, pumping into Puck and jerking him off in tandem, and Puck closes his eyes, straining into Kurt’s touch.

Kurt pushes in with a little extra force, and Puck groans, his body coiling in for a moment before he explodes into Kurt’s hand, and seconds later, he can feel Kurt filling him before collapsing bonelessly, half on top of Puck. “Excellent day,” Puck mutters after a few moments.

He can feel Kurt’s lips curve into a smile against his neck. “Mmmhmm,” Kurt agrees. “Definitely.” Kurt rolls them slightly, so they’re both on their sides, running his hand down Puck’s back and resting it on his ass. Kurt murmurs something else that Puck can’t make out, clearly falling asleep, and Puck yawns and pulls the covers over both of them before closing his own eyes.

 

The treadmill doesn’t kick Puck’s ass quite as thoroughly the next morning, so he chalks that up as a win, even if there’s no time to play in the shower since he successfully convinced Kurt that thirty additional minutes of sleep was a good plan. Kurt stews over his own clothes, like he can’t decide what to wear, so Puck in turn acts like he’s completely clueless about what to wear. Kurt picks out the same thing, more or less, that Puck had in mind, but once he’s done, he manages to grab his own clothes with much less angst: black pants, black boots, dark purple shirt, silvery–grey tie, and a similar colored vest.

“Nice,” Puck smirks, and Kurt grins.

“I thought you’d approve.”

“You thought correctly.” Puck crosses the small space between them and pulls Kurt into his arms, pressing their lips together for a long moment before deepening the kiss, his tongue teasing at Kurt’s lips until they part.

Kurt pulls away after a moment, grinning. “ _You_ aren’t dressed yet.”

Puck looks down and shrugs. “Who needs shoes, right?”

“Or your jacket, or a coat, or a belt…” Kurt adds.

“Details,” Puck scoffs, but he does step backwards and grab said belt.

“The deli I found online is just down the block from Mannes,” Kurt begins, “and the 86th Street stop is about two blocks away, so I’ll take it. And we’re only about six blocks away to begin with. Which is good, because it looks cold outside.”

“You’re just saying that because of the thin layer of snow on those cars.”

Kurt rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “I know, silly me.”

“Hey, you said it,” Puck shrugs, suppressing a grin. “Let’s go grab breakfast.” Breakfast is actually cheap—not quite Waffle House cheap, but not busting their wallets—as well as decent food and quick.

“You going to eat lunch near Pace or Marymount?” Puck asks as they amble towards the 86th Street station.

“Unless I get done really quickly at Pace,” Kurt nods. “Meet at the Met at four?”

“For a crazy night out?” Puck grins.

“Yes, we’re ridiculously crazy,” Kurt agrees, then briefly embraces Puck. “Okay. Kill it, baby.”

“You too, blue eyes. Be good.”

Kurt grins. “I’m always good.” With that, he turns to walk the remaining block, and Puck watches him for a minute before turning back around and walking back up 85th to Mannes. He doesn’t get far before he hears someone calling him.

“Noah!”

He turns, somehow unsurprised to see Allison from the day before. “Allison.”

She grins. “You remembered! I thought that was you. Are you staying right here?”

Puck shakes his head. “Back on 81st. We ate breakfast there,” he inclines his head as they pass back by, “and I was walking part of the way to the subway with Kurt.”

“Ooh, I probably passed him! And didn’t even know it was him.” Allison sighs. “So, you meeting up with him for lunch?”

“Nah, he’s got to get from Pace to Marymount Manhattan, so. Probably not practical.”

“And we just have to get from here back to MSM.” She nods once. “Good, I can convince you to split a pizza with me. And tonight after our interviews?”

“Uh.” Puck pauses under the guise of holding open the door. “Just exploring a little,” he finally settles on as they approach a small desk to check in.

“Oh, good, we can do dinner. Tell Kurt to bring anyone he’s met.” She keeps up a constant chatter while they check in and find their way into a small classroom. “Oh, we’re going to go sit next to him,” she decides, aiming for a dark-haired guy who looks bored. She scoots past him, leaving Puck no choice but to sit on the other side. “Hi! We’re going to be friends.”

The guy blinks and looks at Puck, who holds up his hands. “Don’t ask me. I met her less than twenty-four hours ago and she’s my social secretary now, apparently.”

“Someone has to organize things,” Allison shrugs. “Now.” She looks at the other guy for a second. “Ben! I’m Allison. Composition, from outside the City. That’s Noah, also composition, from Bean Curd, Ohio.”

“Lima,” Puck corrects her.

“That’s what I said. So. Theory or composition, Ben?”

“Wow. Okay. Composition. Seattle.”

“Excellent. So, Noah here, the answer is ‘both’. I’m not gay but I’m sort of taken. What about you? Gay, taken, or both?”

Ben blinks at her. “Neither?”

“How can you be sort of taken?”

“Oh, I have a guy, but we both know it’s not going anywhere serious, you know? We have fun together and we’ll go to prom together and shit, but I’m staying in the City or New England at the very least, and he’s off to California in August. Got in to USC Early Decision, super excited.” Allison shrugs. “Really, it’s perfect, I have a guy to hang out with and not have to worry about dates but we’re happy with what it is and isn’t. Plus, his name’s Aaron. That’s just so twee. Allison and Aaron?”

Puck laughs. “Friend of mine is headed to USC too. We should introduce them on Facebook or whatever.”

“Seriously? That’s cool!” Allison grins. “Wow, to live in Green Legume, isn’t that weird? You and Kurt headed here, someone headed to California?”

“Yeah, a bit,” Puck acknowledges. “I don’t know, all of us in glee club ended up casting a wide net. I think Finn’s the one staying closest to home, and he’ll still be eight hours away.”

“Glee club, hmm?” Allison shrugs. “Cool. What about you, Ben? Are you one of many jet-setters leaving Seattle?”

Ben grins at last. “I’m one of only two people graduating this year from my school.”

“What kind of school is that?” Puck furrows his eyebrows. “Is it like, religious or something?”

“No, it’s a Sudbury school. I was unschooled until high school, but my mom thought a school transcript would be useful.”

“Unschooled? It sounds cool, but what is it?”

“It’s a type of homeschooling. Basically I’ve always decided what I wanted to learn about.”

“Oh, that sounds sweet,” Puck breathes. “So like, if you don’t want to read stupid novels, you don’t have to?”

“Well, yeah,” Ben shrugs. “The Sudbury school model is pretty similar. So I do a lot of music and some sketching and history, and whatever I decide is the bare minimum for everything else.”

“Damn, that’d be awesome,” Puck declares.

“Boys,” Allison shakes her head.

“Y chromosome, at your service,” Ben inclines his head, and then they all laugh.

“So tonight, we’re doing dinner,” Allison informs Ben. “We’ll exchange digits after the exam and figure out where we’re all meeting. Are your parents with you?”

“Yeah, we’re staying in Greenwich Village.” He shrugs. “Mom really wanted to stay there, I don’t know.”

“Great, bring them too! Maybe my dad will stay in the City and eat with us. He works in Midtown. I actually rode in with him today, I haven’t done that in years!”

Before either of them can respond—and Puck’s not entirely sure she was expecting a response—a woman walks into the room and launches straight into what feels like an information session combined with instructions for the exam, and before Puck has time to worry more about it, he’s staring at the first page of the exam, a helpful scrawl on the whiteboard informing them that they have one hour.

The exam is pretty similar to the one from MSM the day before, and Puck actually feels pretty good about it when he finishes. Not so good about the MSM one, because he realizes midway through the Mannes exam that he fucked up one part the day before, but hey. Can’t win them all.

When they finish, they’re herded through a quick tour and given more papers before being sent away with the admonition that they would see everyone that afternoon or the next morning.

“Great! Lunch?” Allison looks at Puck and then at Ben, who shrugs and walks with them to the left.

“What’s good?”

“There’s pizza around the corner. Pizza is always good.”

“She does seem to speak the truth,” Ben says mildly to Puck, who nods. “Are we splitting one?”

“That would make the most sense.” Puck purses his lips. “Taco pizza.”

“I love taco pizza!” Ben grins. “Maybe Allison has radar for lovers of taco pizza.”

“Of course I do!” She whirls around and grins. “It’s my favorite.”

Puck’s phone starts to sing as Allison orders, and he grins as he answers it. “All done?”

“I am. Actually heading to the subway already, I waited until I was sure you were done. Grabbing lunch?”

“Yeah, pizza. You?”

“There was a Chipotle nearby, I got a burrito. How’d the test go?”

“Better than yesterday, I think. Your audition?”

“Nailed it,” and Puck can hear the smile in Kurt’s voice. “Four still good?”

“Yeah. Allison wants us to do some kind of group dinner thing. You’re supposed to bring anyone you’ve met. I think she’s missed her real calling as White House Social Secretary.”

Kurt laughs. “Well, tell her 7 or 7:30? As long as it’s near the Met, we shouldn’t have a problem.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” Puck nods. “Okay. Be good, blue eyes.”

“I’m always good.”

Puck puts his phone away and looks up to see Allison giving him an amused look. “What?”

“I wouldn’t have figured it at first,” she says with a slow nod, “but you—” She hands him a can of pop, which he opens and starts to drink. “—you’re totally a bottom.”

Puck splutters a little, choking. “Nosy little bitch, aren’t you?” he grouses.

“That’s more than I ever needed to know,” Ben assures him.

“Now I really am looking forward to meeting him,” Allison says, a touch too brightly, as they sit down. “I’m starting to get a picture in my mind.”

“Are you?” Puck laughs. “I’m pretty sure it’s inaccurate.”

“Let’s see. Musical theatre. I’m thinking he’d love to play Javert and Don Quixote, and he’s singing ‘Impossible Dream’ for his auditions.”

Puck knows enough to know that Allison’s barking up the completely wrong tree, and he can’t help guffawing. “I tell you what. Wait until this evening—Kurt says 7:30, by the way—and then you can see if you’re right or not.”

“Seven-thirty? Okay. What part of town?”

“Upper East work okay?”

“Ooh, we could get sushi? Or burgers?”

“No one’s vegan, are they?” Ben asks. “Because that would suck for them, if we went with burgers.”

“Hell no.” Puck shakes his head.

“Even if they are, most burger places in the city offer veggie burgers.” Allison shrugs. “But I’m not, either. Obviously. Taco pizza.”

Said pizza is deposited as she speaks, and they each grab a slice, falling silent while they eat. Ben’s phone buzzes halfway through the meal, and he reads the text then shakes his head. “My mom is lost in Chelsea. Or maybe Chinatown. She’s not sure which. My dad’s _Japanese_ so she can’t read the writing, even if it is Chinatown.”

“Your mom sounds… interesting. Was the non–schooling thing her idea?”

“Unschooling, and yeah. Definitely. Dad’s always been a little skeptical, but Violet, my sister, is finishing up her undergrad at Berkeley, so he can’t argue too much.” Ben shrugs.

“Ooh, siblings!” Allison brightens. “Do you have any others?”

Ben shakes his head. “Just the two of us.”

“I don’t have any,” Allison says mournfully. “Noah, what about you?”

“One little sister, Hannah. She’s eight, nine in June. Third grade.”

“Oh, wow! Is that why your parents didn’t come?”

“Parent, yeah, Mom has to work and she can’t leave Hannah all by herself for days or pull her from school for this. Much as Hannah would love it.” Puck grins. “Hannah’s all ‘bring me back a T-shirt from the Hard Rock Cafe!’ ”

“You _have_ to go to the American Girl Store and buy her something,” Allison gushes. “I still have mine. I adored them. Seriously, they’re like little girl crack.”

“American Girl Store. Little girl crack. Okay.” He frowns. “Send me a message on Facebook – yes I noticed you stealing my phone and adding yourself a few minutes ago when I had it out.”

Allison huffs. “I thought I was being sneaky!”

“Oh, you were. I’m just like a ninja.”

“Right. Well. Ben, we have to go up to MSM. I have your number. I will text you the location of dinner before 7:30. Perhaps your mother should not be in charge of navigating, assuming she makes it out of Chelseatown by then.” She grins. “Noah? Ready to rock their socks off?”

“Somehow I don’t think rock is what they’re looking for.”

 

Kurt steps inside the building and exhales quietly, relieved to be back in some warmth instead of the cold and slush. He takes off his coat and folds it over his arm, almost absently adjusting his hair in the reflection provided by the door, and then walks over to check in before proceeding down the indicated hallways to find a plethora of chairs lining the last one. Kurt sinks into the one indicated by his supposedly randomly–assigned number, and puts his bag underneath his chair.

“Hey. I _hate_ dress-up day,” says a voice from the other side of Kurt. Kurt turns his head to see Zachary from the previous day and smiles slightly.

“It’s more unusual to find me not ‘dressed up’,” Kurt admits.

“I’m just not used to it. This isn’t how we dress up at home. It’s too hot for that most of the time.” Zachary readjusts his tie. “I don’t have a problem with suits or anything. I have this really nice linen one at home. I don’t wear a tie with it, though.”

“Linen.” Kurt shakes his head. “I can wear linen for about two and a half months out of the year.”

“I can wear mine most of the year, but no tie. Sometimes, for about two weeks in December, I can toss on a scarf if I’m out at night,” Zachary grins.

“My brother thinks that ‘layers’ is my answer to almost everything. It’s hard to imagine going without multiple ones.”

“You’re in the right city, then. It’s already in the 70s at home, during the day at least.”

“But dry, right?”

“Yeah, pretty dry, usually. Depends on the year. Some years are wetter than others, but when it rains, it’s kind of always a big deal,” Zachary says.

“Hmm. I can’t imagine, actually.” Kurt shrugs slightly. “How did you like yesterday?”

Zachary shrugs. “I’m good at interviews. I’m also good at jumping through hoops. Hopefully that means it went well.”

“Why do I have a feeling you mean literal hoops?”

“Well, I _did_ do about eight years of gymnastics.”

“As I thought. Actual hoops.” Kurt grins. “A friend of mine narrowed her college choices to the two schools that have a circus.”

“Oh, I might like to meet this friend. Got pictures? I appreciate limber.”

“Brittany is… one of a kind,” Kurt finally settles on, but he does pull out his phone and scroll through his albums until he finds the few shots he has from the dance, one of them Brittany and Santana dancing together. “The blonde’s Brittany. She’s our best female dancer. And that’s her girlfriend, Santana.”

“Alas,” Zachary sighs. “The curse of the heterosexual male show choir member. Too straight for the guys, too male for the girls, and the prettiest ones always have gorgeous girlfriends.”

Kurt laughs. “We’re only a third queer. Well.” He shakes his head slightly. “Four out of twelve, though I once had my suspicions about Sam.”

“To be fair, my girlfriend is perfectly fond of guys, but our show choir is, well, I’d say at _least_ a third, but the school in general is pretty… well, we’re an _art_ town.”

“That would be… nice,” Kurt settles on. “I’m the only one in the entire school who’s voluntarily out. Lima, Ohio is not precisely the most tolerant of places.”

“Yeah, some disturbing stuff coming out of Ohio on the news,” Zachary says, shaking his head. “I mean, better than Alabama or Utah I guess, but maybe not that much better.”

“No,” Kurt agrees. “Many of our policies are untenable.” Kurt purses his lips slightly then presses them together. “It’s all very… district–dependent.”

“Things definitely aren’t perfect in Arizona, but I think a lot of it’s just… national climate, I guess?”

Kurt nods, understanding. “We all just have to carve out our spaces, but it’s difficult to do until a certain age.”

“Excuse me!” A voice interrupts them, and Kurt turns slightly to look at the owner of the voice.

“Yes?”

“Hi, I’m Victoria Hastings.” She smiles at them. “I hate to interrupt, but I could really use some silence to go over my lines. I’m number forty-three, after all!”

“Well, I’m number eighteen,” Zachary responds politely. “And I need this time to not lose my mind, so…”

“Oh, well.” Victoria looks very flustered. “I suppose I could engage in conversation for a short period of time. As I said, I’m Victoria. Hastings. I’m from Georgetown, Tennessee, which is just outside Memphis.”

“Kurt Hummel,” Kurt finally offers politely. “Lima, Ohio.”

“Zachary Alvarez-Fuller. Scottsdale, Arizona.”

“Zachary, Kurt, it’s nice to meet you.” She sighs slightly. “New York overwhelms me,” she admits. “Memphis is so much smaller.”

“Your first trip?” Kurt asks.

“No, second,” Victoria confesses, “but last time I was here with the rest of our show choir and our director pretty much told us everywhere to go. We had laminated itineraries.”

Zachary laughs out loud. “Sorry,” he says, still laughing. “That’s funny. Kind of sweet, too.”

Kurt tries very hard not to laugh, settling for a smile. “Nationals, I presume?”

“Yes!” She beams. “Are either of you in show choir?”

“He’s from the school with ‘the Kiss’,” Zachary says, jerking his thumb in Kurt’s direction.

“It’s true,” Kurt nods in confirmation. “My brother, in fact.”

“Ooh!” Victoria almost squeals. “That was just the sweetest thing. And original songs, too! You guys totally should have been in the top ten.”

“That’s what I said. Unprofessional, but cute.”

“Yes, well.” Kurt shrugs slightly. “Despite the fact of – well, many things. There shouldn’t be a repeat of it, at any rate.”

“Oh, too bad.” Victoria grins for a minute. “So are both of you trying out for the musical theatre minor, too?” Kurt nods, and Zachary does the same. “Oh, excellent! What songs are you doing?” she asks, lowering her voice a bit. “I prepared two and I’m still trying to decide.”

“ ‘Almost Like Being in Love’ from _Brigadoon_ ,” Zachary says. “Playing it safe seemed like a good idea, plus, I can sing it in my sleep, which I figured could be a good call if the adrenaline kicks in too hard.”

“ ‘As If We Never Said Good-bye’,” Kurt answers, easily, and Victoria blinks for a minute.

“Well, I prepared both ‘Popular’ and ‘Suddenly Seymour’, and I can’t quite decide.”

“While I adore everything _Wicked_ , ‘Popular’ is a bit overdone, I suspect,” Kurt suggests gently.

“Oh, that’s true.” She deflates a little. “I do love that musical. Do you know which theatre it’s in?”

“Gershwin.” Kurt smiles smugly. “The seats are blue, as it happens.”

“You sound awfully pleased with yourself about that,” Zachary notes. “I’m sensing a story.”

“Rachel and I—Rachel being the other half of ‘the Kiss’—might have broken into the theatre.” He grins. “We also might have sung on the stage before being escorted politely out.”

“Ohh,” Victoria breathes. “Really? Was it wonderful? What did you _sing_? How did you do it?”

“The actual breaking in was remarkably easy, and it was thoroughly wonderful. We sang ‘For Good’, naturally.”

“I’m impressed,” Zachary says, nodding slowly. “Did _not_ peg you as the criminal element.”

Kurt laughs lightly. “My favorite poet is Whitman. ‘I am large, I contain multitudes’.”

“I don’t think I could do that,” Victoria says. “Break in, I mean. But it sounds _wonderful_!”

“Oh, it was,” Kurt assures her. “Definitely a highlight of the trip.”

“Quite the colorful club you’ve got over there in Ohio,” Zachary remarks.

“Oh, I have stories,” Kurt agrees, as his phone starts to ring. “Hey, are you done already?” he asks, grinning.

“Yeah, they did it in the order we showed up. Go figure.” Kurt can picture Puck shrugging. “But, yeah— _quit_ it—Allison says she’s going to talk to you. Now, apparently. But hey, use the voice you did for the funk number sophomore year?”

“Dig deep? Why?”

“Yeah, I’ll tell you later,” Puck snorts, like he’s barely holding back laughter. “Hang on.”

“Hello?” Kurt says into the silence, careful to drop his voice.

“Hi, this is Allison! So. Noah told you about dinner, I heard your conversation on this end. Are you bringing anyone? Their parents? Tell Noah to text me how many people so I can figure out where we’re eating.”

“Okay,” Kurt says slowly, and he’s beginning to understand what Puck meant about Allison. She seems less like a girl and more like a force of nature. “All right. Can you hand me back to Noah now?”

“Sure! See you tonight!”

“Sorry,” Puck apologizes. “She’s kind of…”

“Intense,” Kurt supplies, biting back a laugh. “I gathered that, yes. Are you heading over here now?”

“Yeah, you want me to meet you at the Met or come find you there?”

“I think they’re on number sixteen and I’m number twenty-one, so I’ll still meet you there.”

“Okay, blue eyes. Break a leg.”

“I will try. How was yours?”

“Decent.” There’s a whoosh that Kurt thinks is probably doors closing on the bus. “One of the interviewers spent a lot of time asking me about my grades freshman and sophomore year, so I don’t know.” Puck sighs. “Okay, I should be there in about twenty-five minutes.”

“I’ll be there not too long after that. Be good.”

“I’m always good.” Kurt ends the call with a smile.

“So, when’s the wedding?” Zachary asks, with a small smile.

Kurt rolls his eyes but continues smiling. “And what makes you ask that?”

“Uh, because the last time I heard a phone conversation that sounded like that, it was between my sister and the guy she married last year.”

“Sounded like what?” Kurt can’t help but ask, furrowing his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Like the happily–ever–after scene at the end of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.”

“Oh, Noah will be _thrilled_ ,” Kurt laughs. “Definitely. Oh, right, Noah met a force of nature that goes by the name of Allison who missed her calling as White House Social Secretary, it seems. Something about dinner, and I’m to invite anyone I’ve met, so.” Kurt shrugs helplessly. “Like I said. Force of nature.”

“Do we count as the people you’ve met?” Zachary asks. “Or are we the people you’re going to try to avoid later on?”

“Those are mutually exclusive categories?” Kurt smirks slightly. “Seven-thirty, somewhere Upper East Side.”

“Wait, I’m confused.” Victoria frowns a little. “Who were you talking to?”

“My boyfriend.” Kurt has to pause for just a second. “Noah. He’s auditioning at MSM and Mannes this weekend.”

“Ohh.” She nods cheerfully. “That must be nice! No direct competition. I had to start dating outside show choir to calm my competitive spirit!”

Kurt is momentarily thankful that he doesn’t have to muster up a response, as the student calling numbers calls out eighteen, and Zachary heaves a dramatic sigh.

“Once more unto the breach, new friends,” he mutters, standing up. “Oh, somebody write this down so I don’t miss dinner!” Zachary rattles off his phone number in one quick breath, and Kurt nods, fingers typing it into his phone.

“Got it. Break a leg.”

“I’ll break both of them. Might get me the sympathy vote,” Zachary says, and winks before heading in the direction of an ominous–looking door down the hall and on the left. Kurt’s equally sure it won’t look so ominous after the audition, but for now, he decides to ignore it as much as possible.

“Ohh,” Victoria exhales. “I’m so nervous. I haven’t been this nervous in _years_. I’ve been performing since before I can remember. Why am I so nervous now?”

“What did you eat for lunch?”

Victoria blinks at him. “You think I’m nervous because I ate a tuna salad sandwich for lunch?”

Kurt shrugs. “Maybe you’re hungry, depending on when you ate it.”

“So I’m not nervous, I’m just hungry? That does sound better.”

“I’m going to find one of those hot dog carts as soon as I finish, myself,” Kurt shrugs, smiling slightly. “My burrito from Chipotle was awhile ago now.”

 

Puck is actually pretty damn proud of himself. Not for all the exams and interview—though there is that—but mainly because he has this cross-town public transit thing at least halfway to figured out. After he gets off the bus—right in front of the Met, see, he’s got this—he buys a couple of the two-dollar hot dogs off the guy with the cart, then wanders over and gets two milkshakes, which takes long enough for Kurt to appear.

“My hero,” Kurt grins, gratefully taking one of the hot dogs and one of the milkshakes. “That burrito did not exactly stick with me.”

“You ate it early,” Puck points out, kissing Kurt’s nose while his hands are still full. “But yeah, if dinner’s not until 7:30.” He shrugs and takes another bite of his hot dog.

“So why exactly did you have me lower my voice to talk to Allison?” Kurt asks curiously after they finish their food and walk toward the entrance.

Puck laughs. “She decided that you were, I don’t know, some kind of baritone or something. Thought it’d be funnier to see the look on her face.” He shrugs. “I know you like challenging people’s assumptions.”

“That I do,” Kurt agrees, smirking slightly. “Shall we?”

 

Around 6:30, Allison texts them with a name and an address. “Jackson Hole, 1611 2 Av & 84,” Kurt reads, then shrugs, touching the address on the screen and then looking at the map. “Not far from here, either.”

“Walkable?” Puck asks, though he figures it’s getting colder now that the sun’s setting.

“Twelve minutes?” Kurt answers, sounding skeptical. “But the bus looks like it’d take longer. I say we either walk or get a cab.”

“We’ll want a cab later,” Puck points out. “Colder then.”

“True,” Kurt acknowledges, and they spend their last forty-five minutes looking at Egyptian art, during which Puck mostly looks at the coffins and canopic jars. The walk to the restaurant does end up being cold, but the streets are pretty and it’s an excellent excuse to walk with their sides pressed together, anyway.

“Just one more thing, and then we’re free,” Puck can’t help but gloat as they near the restaurant.

“Yes. And then it’s completely out of our hands which, frankly? At this point, I find that comforting.”

“Fuck, yeah,” Puck agrees. “Oh, that must be the place.”

“It’s cute, in a kitschy sort of way,” Kurt remarks, taking in its outer facade. “It’s not quite 7:30.” They step near the door and peer in, and Puck scans the room quickly. “See anyone you know?”

Puck shakes his head. “Not yet. I guess we wait out here.” He leans against a planter and wraps his arm around Kurt’s waist, underneath Kurt’s coat, pulling him close.

“You’re just trying to find an excuse to stand like this,” Kurt complains, leaning his head on Puck’s shoulder.

“It’s working.”

“Point.”

Kurt’s phone starts to sing ‘Dancing in the Dark’ then; he pulls it out to answer it, holding it out slightly and hitting speaker as soon as he answers. “Hello, Finn.”

“Hey, Kurt! I was worried I’d just get voice mail!”

“You caught us before dinner,” Puck points out.

“Oh, awesome, hey, Puck!”

“Have I driven Dad crazy yet?” Kurt asks, grinning.

“I think your foursquare is a little out of hand, dude,” Finn says, laughing a little. “Burt finally just turned the ringer off so it would stop making that dinging noise.”

Puck can’t help but laugh along with Kurt. “Well,” Kurt finally says, “he did want to know where I was.”

“That’s what he said, too. I think he’s kinda sorry he said that now. So how’d it all go today? Do you know anything yet?”

“Nah, not for another month,” Puck answers. “And we’re getting good at this whole bus and subway thing.”

“And Puck met a force of nature disguising itself as a human girl.”

“Is she cute?”

“Uh, I guess?” Puck shrugs. “Cute enough? Her name’s Allison.”

“Hmm. Send a picture. I’m _bored_ , you guys. Really, really bored.”

“We’ll try. How was rehearsal the last few days?”

“Uh. Awkward. Not awful, but… kind of a little close to awful?”

“The actual performances, dude, or just the troublemakers?”

“I mean, some of the performances kind of require you guys to be there to make any sense, so that part wasn’t awesome, but.” Finn pauses and sighs. “The girls were kinda weird. Well, not all of them. You know which ones.”

“Weirder than they were at the beginning of the week?” Kurt asks, his interest clearly piqued. “Like… perhaps they were being questioned about something?”

“Maybe. Different–weird. Fewer comments, more ugly looks, and they kept staring at me all suspicious–like. I was all, what the fuck, guys?”

“Ah.” Kurt purses his lips. “Well. I _did_ give my complaint to Coach Beiste as opposed to Schue or Ms. P.”

“Well, that’s probably it, then. I think that if Quinn could have set me on fire with her brain, she’d have managed it. She’s _scary_.”

“Mmm. Well. If you get a chance, turn Dad’s ringer on tomorrow around noon.”

“I can do that. Oh, and I think Casey figured out we were babysitting him by seventh period on Wednesday, but he still hasn’t said anything. It’s kind of hilarious, because he keeps looking at us all weird, but then Karofsky turns up again and it’s all ‘oh I have no idea what’s going on’!”

They laugh. “I’m sure,” Puck manages. “How long until he starts begging for everyone to let him piss in peace?”

“Nobody’s bothering him in the _bathroom_ , dude,” Finn snorts. “We wait _outside_. Oh, and don’t let anybody else in, because Karofsky said he thought that would be better.”

“Potty Patrol. I can’t wait,” Puck adds, shaking his head.

“Do you have any plans tomorrow, Finn?” Kurt suddenly breaks in, looking pensive.

“Not really, no. What’s up?”

“That check from Brittany’s dad is on my desk, you want to take the Trans-Am over to Jim’s on Allentown?”

“Oh, cool, yeah. I can do that! Do you know what yellow?”

“It’s the twenty-two sixty-six, fifty-seven M.”

“Hold on, let me write that down!” There’s a clatter of a phone dropping or being set down awkardly, and then Finn says, “Ok, say that to me again?”

“Twenty-two sixty-six,” Kurt repeats. “Then fifty-seven M. Jim or Bobby, one should remember, I called earlier in the week.”

“Ok, cool. I can do that! Yeah, it’s gonna look so awesome when you get back!”

“Great, thanks.” Kurt tilts his head to the side, catching sight of something out of the corner of his eye. “At least one of our dinner companions is here, so we should go. We’ll call sometime tomorrow, we’re done by noon.”

“Oh,” Finn says, sounding a little dejected. “Ok. Well, um. I miss you guys.”

“Yeah, but at least you don’t have to worry about your pop-tarts going missing,” Puck points out, trying to inject a little levity. “Don’t eat all the ice cream while you miss us, okay?”

“Or if you do, replace it,” Kurt adds with a grin. “Miss you too, Finn. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Ok. Do good tomorrow.”

“Count on it.”

“Thanks. Bye, Finn.”

Finn ends the call, and Kurt pockets his phone, turning slightly, and Puck follows his line of sight to a guy slouching towards them in a corduroy jacket and some kind of hat. “Zachary?” Puck asks quietly, and Kurt nods.

“Hi there, Kurt! Kurt’s… boyfriend–person whose name I don’t remember!” Zachary says with a little swing of his arm.

“Noah,” Kurt supplies, sounding vaguely amused. “Noah, Zachary.”

Puck just nods, his hands still wrapped around Kurt, and smiles. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise! How’d your thing go? At, uh. That place you had the thing?” Zachary sounds… particularly _mellow_.

“Hey, he remembers less than I do!” Puck grins. “And decently.”

“That’s stellar, sir. That’s just. Wow, I’m really starving. How many other people are we waiting for, again? Some really loud girl, right? And that one with all the big emotions, uhh… Victoria, right?” Zachary grins at them.

“Allison, yeah, and Ben,” Puck answers him, and as he says that, a growing–very–familiar voice echoes from behind him.

“Noah!”

“And that would be Allison.”

“Hi!” Allison pops around the planter and beams at all of them. “I’m Allison. This is my dad.” She gestures to a middle-aged man in a suit and trench coat who’s still about ten feet away, looking indulgently amused when Puck turns his head to look at him. “I got a text from Ben, his mom got confused about the difference between the 6 train and the 6X, but they’ll be here. Eventually.” She shrugs. “So.” She turns to look at Kurt and blinks. “You’re Kurt?”

“I am,” Kurt confirms, smiling slightly and offering his hand. “Kurt Hummel.”

“Allison Bonnenfant.” She takes his hand with a smile. “You are… not what I was expecting,” she admits candidly.

“I rarely am,” Kurt counters, smirking slightly.

“And you!” She rounds on Puck. “I bet you were laughing hysterically when I was talking earlier.”

“Yep,” he confirms, unapologetic.

“Allison, this is Zachary. Zachary, Allison.”

“Well, hello there Allison!” Zachary says, with enthusiasm. He takes her hand and pulls it to his lips.

Allison laughs but doesn’t pull her hand away. “You are so high!”

“I really am!” Zachary agrees. “You are beautiful _and_ smart.”

“Such a flatterer!” Allison shakes her head, and Puck’s beginning to think they need to interrupt, when a slightly chubby beret–wearing blonde girl comes up to them, almost out of breath, two people who are clearly her parents trailing her.

“Kurt! Zachary! I found it!” She looks amazed with herself. “We’re actually not staying that far from here, so we walked.” She sounds a bit amazed, too, like she can’t believe she walked somewhere.

“Victoria,” Kurt greets her. “This is Noah, and the dark-haired dervish talking to Zachary is Allison.”

“Hi!” Victoria smiles widely. “This is so exciting! I love this city. I think I did so well with my monologue, I just can’t wait until tomorrow.”

“Kurt,” Puck says slowly, “Haven’t we always suspected that Rachel was actually an evil twin? I think we found the good twin.”

Kurt snorts back a laugh. “I’ll let you tell Rachel that.”

“Rachel? Who’s Rachel?”

Kurt exchanges an amused look with Puck. “The other half of ‘the Kiss’,” he answers Victoria, who giggles.

“Oh, her! She does seem like she’s quite talented.”

“They’re famous, I take it?” Puck asks, and Kurt nods.

“Yeah, it was pretty hot. My girlfriend was _piiiiissssed_!” Zachary says, nodding his head slowly.

“Rachel will be happy to hear that,” Puck comments dryly.

“Let’s go ahead and get seats!” Allison declares. “Ben’s supposed to be navigating now, but who can say?”

The interior is colorful and, as Kurt said, kitschy, but they manage to commandeer enough tables without too much wait, and as they sit down and start to order, Ben walks in, a friendly but scattered–looking woman right behind him.

“Hey, guys,” Ben greets them, then blinks at the assortment of people shoved around the table.

“Ben!” Allison greets him. “You found us. Hi, Ben’s mom. This is my dad. This is Zachary, he’s high. That’s Victoria and her mom and dad, and they are definitely _not_ high. And that’s Kurt. Can you believe it? I was totally off on that one.”

“Everyone has to be wrong sometimes?” Ben offers, taking a chair. “This is my mom, Crystal.” She looks up from where she’s rifling through her purse and smiles and waves before returning to her pursuit of… something.

“You boys are all here without so much as a parent to keep an eye on you?” Victoria’s mother says, shaking her head. “I just can’t imagine sending my baby off without me.”

“My little sister needs Mom more than I do,” Puck answers her with a slight shrug. “And at least it’s not our first visit here.”

Kurt nods. “My father owns his own business, so it’s harder for him to arrange time away.”

“My folks are into art,” Zachary says. “They have. Art. Plus I’ve been here every year for the last three years.”

“They’re all in show choir, too, Momma,” Victoria says. “Remember I told you about that sweet, sweet boy who kissed his girlfriend on stage? That’s Kurt’s brother!”

“Oh, well isn’t that the funniest thing!” Victoria’s mother exclaims. “Vicky just went on and on about how precious that was, your brother being so giant and that girlfriend of his being so teensy!”

“Yes, well,” Kurt responds, “Finn is almost… oversized. Tall–ism, he says, when he thinks we’re being discriminatory.”

“Our school sounds so boring by comparison,” Allison laments. “It’s so suburban. Why couldn’t we have at least moved to Queens, Daddy?”

“Because you like having a large closet?” Allison’s father replies, and she sighs a little before nodding her agreement.

“It’s true, I do.”

“Don’t talk about closet space,” Kurt mock–whispers. “I’m trying not to think about it.”

“I’m pretty sure the dorms we’re gonna be living in are closet space,” Zachary grimaces.

“Isn’t that what lofting the beds is for?” Victoria asks, her eyes a little wide.

“I don’t think it’ll make that much difference, will it?” Allison points out. “There’s still only so much floor space.”

“It’s awful. We’ll have to consider doubling up just to save on room,” Zachary suggests.

“Right?” Puck grins. “Just awful.”

Kurt rolls his eyes and elbows Puck, grinning. “Horrible.”

“Well, I’ll have a roommate, I’m sure,” Victoria says.

Zachary stifles, mostly, a laugh. Puck lets a snort escape, thinking to himself that they must have a hell of a questionnaire for roommates. Kurt elbows him again, even though he’s clearly suppressing a smile himself. “I, uh, don’t think they were referencing roommates,” Ben finally says, eyes darting around the table.

“Then what… oh. Oh!” Victoria starts to slowly turn red. “Oh, um. Well.”

“ _Boys_ ,” Allison says, smiling and shaking her head. “They’re the awful ones, aren’t they?”

“I would be honored to show you how awful I am,” Zachary offers.

Allison giggles. “I’m sure you would be!”

Luckily, the arrival of food interrupts them, and during the course of the meal, they collectively discover that Victoria collects Madame Alexander dolls (whatever those are; Puck isn’t sure), Zachary has a tattoo of Kokopelli on his left calf, Ben can tie crazy complicated knots but can’t tie his shoes, and Allison writes fanfiction for the tv show _Supernatural_. For their own parts, Allison looks dumbstruck when Puck mentions football, and Zachary looks rather impressed—as opposed to impressively stoned—when Kurt mentions cars and his dad’s shop.

While everyone is still eating dessert—chocolate layer cake for Puck, a huge sundae for Kurt, and Puck’s not sure what all is scattered around the tables—Victoria’s parents start glancing at their watches and leaning in to confer quietly.

“Vicky, honey, it’s starting to get late,” Victoria’s mother says. “Your daddy and I are worried about getting back to the hotel in a timely fashion.”

“Momma.” Victoria huffs and turns her head towards the rest of them, rolling her eyes just a little. “I swear, Momma, we’re not going to get mugged.”

“But there’s so much _crime_ in the City,” her mother protests.

“I told you, Momma, I researched it, crime rates have dropped drastically in the last fifteen years.” Victoria shakes her head. “Sorry, guys. Zachary, Kurt, I’ll see you in the morning!” She smiles at the other three. “It was lovely to meet you. I think Allison made us all friends on Facebook already.”

“You bet!” Allison agrees, grinning. “Wait! Before you leave! A picture!”

It takes a few minutes and some grumbling but eventually a picture gets snapped with at least eight different phones and Victoria and her parents head back to their hotel. Zachary announces his train and Ben realizes they need the same one, just different stops, so they walk off together, and then Allison and her dad head north to catch the train back to wherever it is she lives, that Puck can’t quite remember.

“Well,” Puck says as he and Kurt stand on the sidewalk. “We could go do Top of the Rock. Or we could head back to the hotel now.”

Kurt bites his lip. “How early do we have to be up in the morning?”

“Nine-thirty for me, ten for you.”

“We could sleep in.”

“Even with brunch.”

“Mmm. Let’s save Top of the Rock, though. We should do it during the day, maybe.”

“True.” Puck’s arm snakes around Kurt, and he can feel the weight of Kurt’s arm against his own back. “Taxi?”

“I think that’s an excellent idea.”

The taxi cuts through Central Park and within ten minutes, they’re in front of the door to their room, both of them already slipping out of their coats. As soon as the door is closed and locked behind them, Puck puts down all of his outerwear and steps out of his boots awkwardly. Kurt does the same with his coat and shoes and then closes the distance between them, smiling almost coyly.

“Need some help with that?” Puck can’t help asking, smirking a little and sliding one hand under the hem of Kurt’s vest.

“Are you offering?”

“Always,” Puck answers, grinning before putting his lips over Kurt’s. Kurt’s lips part easily and while Puck’s tongue darts into Kurt’s mouth, his hands unbutton Kurt’s vest and slowly push it off his shoulders. His reply is absolutely true; always, always, he wants this, wants Kurt relaxing into him, Kurt’s arms loosely around Puck while Puck’s hands unknot Kurt’s tie, remove Kurt’s shirt, trail down the pale exposed skin.

Kurt shifts his own hands, pushing them under Puck’s shirt, slowly removing it before his hands go to the belt that he insisted Puck wear. Puck laughs against Kurt’s mouth when he fumbles with the buckle, cursing once. “What?” Kurt pulls away, flushed and grinning.

“You’re the one that told me to put it on.”

“What seems like an excellent idea in the morning can look foolish in the evening,” Kurt retorts, biting back a laugh of his own, and Puck just grins, reaching for Kurt’s own belt. They maneuver off the rest of their clothes and over to the bed, Puck holding Kurt’s eyes as they settle into what approximates a comfortable position. Kurt runs his hand over the bare skin that Puck’s still getting used to and grins. “Such a hardship.”

“Oh?” Puck raises an eyebrow.

“Getting used to this,” Kurt smirks, nudging Puck over before trailing a finger down to Puck’s entrance. “So difficult,” he adds, his breath almost tickling Puck’s back before Puck feels Kurt’s tongue just behind his balls, moving upward.

“Take as long as you like,” Puck gasps out, forcing himself, barely, to hold still, and Kurt laughs, the sound reverberating down his tongue as he dips it just barely into Puck’s entrance, and Puck whimpers. Kurt repeats it, pushing his tongue further in and then wiggling it, somehow managing still to giggle as Puck shudders and moves underneath him. “K…” he whines, and Kurt moves his tongue again, his hands light on Puck’s ass.

Puck closes his eyes, focusing on feeling Kurt and also smelling him, just the barest hint of smell that he can immediately identify as Kurt, and Kurt’s tongue plunges into him, vibrating occasionally, almost like Kurt meant to say something and forgot his mouth was otherwise occupied. Kurt moves one hand to gently play with Puck’s balls, his tongue pushing even deeper, and Puck thrusts against the bed, his body pressing against the bed and into itself, and he distantly hears himself repeating Kurt’s name over and over as he comes hard, Kurt’s tongue firmly deep inside him as he shakes.

Kurt removes his tongue slowly, then presses his mouth against Puck’s ass before licking and nibbling his way up Puck’s spine. “Mmm, you’re amazing,” Kurt murmurs against the side of Puck’s neck.

Puck grins and shifts slightly. “I’ll show you amazing.”

“Oh?”

“Mmmhmm.” Puck slides his hand between them and closes his hand around Kurt’s cock, moving his fist up and down slowly. “Not going to need long, are you, blue eyes?”

“No,” Kurt breathes, and Puck grins, kissing Kurt behind his ear and down his neck to his shoulder, his hand gliding over Kurt’s erection continuously. “Not long.”

Puck moves slowly down Kurt’s body, pressing open–mouthed kisses to his chest and abdomen before taking just the tip of Kurt’s erection in his mouth, his tongue teasing at the slit. He grins and slides his lips farther down when Kurt thrusts forward, and then swirls his tongue, wrapping it around Kurt’s cock and moving his lips and mouth to take more of Kurt in.

“Please,” Kurt breathes, his hips twitching. Puck grins and stops for a moment until Kurt repeats himself, his hips thrusting harder and his erection dragging along Puck’s lips. Puck reaches between Kurt’s legs, taking Kurt’s balls in his hand and then dragging his thumb over the skin behind them, and Kurt jerks forward with a low cry, coming hard into Puck’s mouth.

Puck crawls back up Kurt’s body, wrapping himself around Kurt and pulling the covers over them, nuzzling against the back of Kurt’s neck. “I’m happy,” he whispers after a long moment. “We… we’re going to be happy here.”

“Yeah, we are,” Kurt answers almost immediately, and if his voice is a little rough, well, he didn’t say anything about Puck’s, so Puck’ll return the favor. “Just, you know,” Kurt continues. “Like the song.”

“It’s going to be a good life?” Puck says lightly.

“Mmm. Yes.”

“S’good plan,” Puck murmurs.

“It is,” Kurt agrees softly, sounding sleepy. “Night, baby.”

“Good night, K.”

 

“You look like you’re in a wonderful mood,” Allison greets Puck the next morning. “And nice shirt. I approve.”

“Thanks, I think?” Puck shrugs. “And why shouldn’t I be in a good mood?”

“No reason.” Allison grins. “What did you two get up to after we all split up?”

“Just went back to the hotel.”

“Mmmhmm.”

Puck shrugs. “It’s true.”

“And you just went straight to sleep.”

“I never said that.” Puck smirks. “ _Not_ that it’s any of your business.”

“I admit, I was surprised,” Allison continues, as if Puck hasn’t spoken. “But you two fit together well. Do people at home just gag constantly at the two of you?”

“Uh.” Puck shrugs. “I— I’m actually not out to that many people.”

“You’re _not_? Wow. I mean, okay, yeah, I didn’t say anything, but I sort of figured it out before you even mentioned Kurt. And people can’t figure it out?”

Puck laughs. “It’s a small town in Ohio. Most of them like to think they’ve identified all three gay people in the entire town. Plus, like I said, I played football. Definitely no queers there.” He snorts back a laugh. Yeah, right.

“That’s crazy.” Allison shakes her head. “I don’t believe it. I mean, I believe you, I just find the entire concept… strange.”

“What’s strange?” Ben approaches from behind them.

“Noah isn’t out at home. And no one guesses. Isn’t that weird?”

“Yes?” Ben shrugs. “I don’t know. Are you flying back out tonight, Noah?”

“No, tomorrow night. We figured if we were here on the weekend already, why not stay another night, right?”

“Makes sense, yeah,” Ben agrees. “My mom wanted to stay but we’re flying out of Newark tonight and stopping in Chicago to see my aunt.”

“We were in Chicago over the holidays, cool city.”

“I haven’t been there in four or five years, but yeah, it is.” Ben exhales a little nervously. “It’s almost all over – except for the waiting.”

“A month of waiting.” Allison sighs dramatically. “How can we distract ourselves?”

“Sectionals, school board meeting, dual enrollment finals, pretty sure there was at least something else in there.” Puck snorts at himself.

“Life. So pedestrian!”

The interview goes much better than the previous day’s, and Puck heads back to the hotel with an enthusiastic hug from Allison and an awkward handshake/manhug from Ben as they disperse. The earliest Kurt could have finished was 10:20, and adding cross-town traffic, Puck figures he won’t be back until close to eleven at the earliest. Puck decides to change clothes and then distracts himself looking up where the Hard Rock Cafe and that damn American Girly Store or whatever is.

Kurt does make it back just a bit after eleven and they head across the street to use that part of their CityPass thing, at the Natural History place. They eat there and wander around for a few hours before heading south to hit the Top of the Rock and shopping.

“We should call Finn like we said we would.”

“Oh, true.” They emerge from the subway and reorient themselves.

“Rockefeller Center’s that way, American Girl’s around that corner, and… there’s a really big Nintendo store there.”

“Your sister is going to wish she’d realized that.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah, she is.”

Kurt pulls out his phone and dials Finn, putting them on speaker as they look at the Nintendo store window displays. The phone rings twice before Finn answers.

“Hey, Kurt!”

“Hello, Finn. How is Lima today?”

“Uh. It’s _Lima_. You and Puck are in New York. So, you know. It’s boring.”

“We are the life of the town,” Puck agrees.

“Shut up, you are.”

“I’m adding that to my resume. ‘Life of the town, Lima, Ohio, 2012’.”

“That’s… disturbing. Trans-Am make it to Jim’s?”

“Yep, and it’s gonna be bright yellow… I dunno, at some point,” Finn says. “Oh, I saw your picture!”

“Allison,” Puck concludes.

“Yes, and Victoria’s parents were convinced there were muggers on every corner.”

“Allison’s the dark-haired one, right? She’s cute. Victoria is the blonde-haired girl, and she looks very, uhh… surprised. Oh, and is the blond guy stoned or what?”

“Zachary? Yes, he was. Though he wasn’t stoned at the auditions, at least.”

“That’s funny. Did everything go ok? Do you think you did a good job? I miss you guys!”

“Pretty good, yeah. Mannes better than MSM, so that’s something at least.”

“I’m pretty sure there weren’t many others with my range, so either they’ll want it or they don’t need it,” Kurt comments, shrugging slightly. “But I know I did better about not picking overused pieces than some, so that’s an edge.”

“Oh, well that’s good, then,” Finn says, sounding enthusiastic, if a little sad. “I bet you were great. You, too, Puck.”

“Thanks,” Kurt answers, then switches topics. “So we’re doing a little shopping this afternoon. Nothing you particularly wanted?” Puck grins, thinking of the growing pile of shot glasses they’ve already acquired.

“Nah, just, I dunno. Take some good pictures or whatever.”

“I’m assuming _not_ from the top of the Rockefeller Center?” Puck can’t resist asking.

“Oh, please no.”

“We promise, no pictures of heights. For you, anyway,” Kurt amends. “Did you know they have a store just for Nintendo? It’s perplexing.”

“I don’t know about perplexing or whatever, but it sounds pretty cool to me!”

“There’s a store for everything, I think,” Puck says. “But on the plus side, we have the whole subway and bus thing down.”

“Good, you can show me how to use them when we’re back there in May.”

“That’s the plan,” Kurt says lightly. “Keep everyone in line tomorrow night while we’re flying back.”

“You know it! Don’t I always?”

“Yes, sir, dictator, sir!” Puck snaps off.

They can hear Finn laughing as he ends the call.

“Shall we?” Kurt gestures ahead of them, and Puck shrugs.

“Hannah’d kill us if we didn’t at least go in.”

“True.”

The rest of the afternoon passes in a blur of shopping and views from high above the city, before they head towards Hard Rock Cafe and get Hannah her requested T-shirt, another pair of shot glasses for Finn, and then decide to eat an early dinner while they’re there. “We should go out,” Kurt muses. “Shouldn’t we?”

Puck shrugs. “We could. Tomorrow we’ll do the Circle Line thing and…”

“More shopping?” Kurt nods a little. “Brunch again. So if we slept in, we’d more than manage.”

“No workout in the morning, if we go out.”

Kurt laughs. “No, I agree.”

And that, Puck figures, is how he ends up buying an outfit at H&M before they ride back to the hotel to change, and then back down on the D and F trains to find the supposedly eighteen and up club in Chelsea that the internet assures them is ‘the gayest’. Puck has to wonder if there’s a scale or something: gay, gayer, gayest? How would someone measure ‘gay’?

At any rate, the club is full of lots and lots of gay guys, and they dance and people–watch until well past 1 am, when they take a cab back to the hotel. Puck is exhausted, even though he wants to just rip Kurt’s clothes off—not literally, Kurt would kill him—and fall into bed for non–sleeping activities. Ultimately, though, sleep wins them over, sleep and the realization that they have to eat brunch and pack and check out in the morning, all before noon. They do call for valet to pick up the clothes they wore to the club, because Kurt decides they’re too smelly to even go in with the rest of the laundry, the next day.

The next morning feels like it comes too early, even though Puck realizes as they’re leaving for brunch that it’s the latest he’s slept, probably, since New Year’s Day, if not before that. Packing is a blur of Kurt pointing and babbling frantically, because even though Kurt apparently planned on purchasing things and left room in the luggage accordingly, he still worries about fitting everything. Everything fits and they check out—the hotel holding their luggage for them, which is sweet—and even make it to the Circle Line dock in time to get on their boat or ship or whatever. Puck can never keep track of when they’re boats and when they’re ships, but boat people—and ship people—seem to really care.

By the end of the boat or ship ride, Puck and Kurt agree that they really don’t ever need to do it again, but figure that they probably will end up doing it repeatedly, when people visit. Shopping takes up the rest of the afternoon, which more or less means Puck trailing after Kurt, because Kurt has Burt’s credit card. When Kurt finally needles Puck into buying “something, anything,” Puck picks out a Yankees hat and wears it out of the store, which leaves Kurt giggling.

“I didn’t know you were a Yankees fan.”

“Yeah, me either.” Puck shrugs. “Gotta pick them or the Mets, one, right?”

“I suppose. They’re the pinstriped ones, right?”

Puck grins. “Exactly.”

“One more store,” Kurt promises a half hour later. “Then we grab a taxi back to the hotel, add this to the luggage, and head towards LaGuardia.”

“Is there room?”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “Do you doubt my packing abilities?”

“I’m guessing this is where I just shake my head and say no?”

“Good guess.” Kurt smiles sweetly and Puck laughs, tickling Kurt just a little with the hand wrapped around his waist.

Everything goes smoothly until they arrive at LaGuardia, ninety minutes before their flight, and head towards the US Airways counter to check their baggage. “Sorry,” the attendant says, looking a little flustered. “Most of our flights tonight are cancelled.”

“Excuse me?” Kurt wrinkles his forehead. “Why?”

“Weather.”

“It’s clear!”

“Not here.” He gestures to a television playing CNN nearby. “Atlanta. Whole airport’s snowed in, we’ve got a bunch of planes stuck there.” There’s a few clicks on his computer before he shrugs. “Moving planes around, looks like tomorrow we’ll be fine. Right now you’re bumped to a 7:15 flight in the morning.”

“What time does that get in to Columbus?” Puck asks, because he’s wondering if their entire day is going to be fucked, or just most of it.

“Just after nine am.” He prints out something and hands it to them. “I wouldn’t check your baggage until the morning, though. Hotels around the airport are full, as far as I know. Terminal’s not too crowded yet.”

“Thanks,” Puck says, nodding slightly, and they head into the building. The guy was right; it’s not horribly crowded, so they make their way over to some seating and stake their claim. “Well. Now what?”

Kurt sighs. “By the time we leave the area around the airport and get back into an area where there might be rooms, it’s going to be late. No guarantees of finding a place we can afford. Plus getting up really early to get back over here. A 7:15 flight means getting here at what, 5:45?” Kurt shakes his head.

“So we stay here?” Puck asks, even though they both know the answer.

“We stay here.” Kurt shrugs. “Guess we’d better let people know.”

Kurt calls Burt first, explaining the situation and nodding a few times. “Okay, Dad. Yeah, we will. A big dinner, sure.” He pauses for a longer period of time. “I know, Dad. We were going to sleep in shifts probably. No, our baggage isn’t checked yet, and we have carry-ons anyway. Sure. Yes, I’ll text him later. Okay. Bye.”

“My turn?”

“Your turn.”

“Noah?” Rina answers on the second ring. “I thought you were flying back tonight.”

“Hi, Mom. Yeah, apparently Atlanta has snow and our plane is stuck in it, or something.” Puck shrugs even though his mom can’t see him. “We’re supposed to be on a flight in the morning now.”

“Oh, Noah.” Rina sighs, and Puck can’t tell if she’s upset _for_ him or _with_ him. “Well, let me know if that changes, all right? And we’ll see you tomorrow evening for dinner?”

“That is the plan,” Puck agrees. “I’ll text you when we land in the morning, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you. Be careful, Noah.”

“Yeah, we will. Bye, Mom.” Puck disconnects the call before Rina can respond again, then purses his lips and shrugs as he looks at Kurt. “Now what?”

“Dad said we should use the credit card and eat a big dinner. But I hate to lose the spot here.”

“Take-out from the sit-down place?”

“Maybe. Then we figure out who’s sleeping first and get on with the night.”

 

Puck wrinkles his nose and squints into the light. “Hmm?”

“It’s 5:30,” Kurt says quietly. “I thought we should see if we’re still leaving in two hours. Grab some coffee, change clothes, all of that.”

“Hmm.” Puck yawns and sits up slowly. “Good point.” He frowns. “We barely have any clean clothes.”

“I know.” Kurt huffs. “We have the clothes we wore Saturday night.”

“I think I’ll stick with these jeans.”

“I thought you might.” Kurt grins a little. “I don’t think Lima’s ready for those pants on you.”

“I’m not ready for Lima in those pants,” Puck quips. They head towards the bathroom and change quickly, and Puck grins. “Nice, blue eyes.”

“I look…”

“Like you’re going clubbing. Which, um. You did. Just.” Puck laughs.

“Exactly.” Kurt shrugs and sighs. “Oh, well, can’t be helped.”

The good news at the desk is that they are flying on the 7:15 am flight; the bad news is that they’re stuck sitting looking over the wing. They consume a lot of coffee before even getting to the gate, and Kurt sighs as they take their seats.

“Two more months,” Puck says quietly.

“Then two and a half after that.”

“Soon.” The engines start and the plane starts to taxi down the runway, and they both sigh.

Kurt whispers as the wheels leave the tarmac, holding tight to Puck’s hand. “Not soon enough.”


	5. Foursquare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, Burt said he wanted Kurt to check in.

“So everytime Kurt goes somewhere, he can check in, right? And it’s gonna show me exactly where he is?” Burt asks for, like, the millionth time. That’s parents, though, always having a hard time with easy technology stuff.

“Yeah, Burt. Look, I set it up so you’ll get the notifications to your phone,” Finn explains. Burt just looks at him blankly. “So it dings when he goes places.”

“And he can check in anywhere?”

“Yeah, pretty much anywhere, and then you’ll know where he is and that he’s, like, safe or whatever.”

“Alright, Finn. Thanks, that’s great!” Burt says. “This’ll be just great.”

 _Oh yeah,_ Finn thinks, _this’ll be just great._

 

The first ding comes at around nine and Burt looks really proud of himself for receiving a notification to his phone.

“Look at this, Finn! They’re at the Excelsior Hotel!”

“That’s great, Burt,” Finn says. “So we know they’re checked in and stuff. Pretty cool.”

Not too long after, less than an hour, Burt’s phone dings again and Burt announces, “They’re at the Empire State Building!”

Less than an hour after that, and Burt’s phone dings again and Burt says, “Ethiopian food? Huh. Never would have thought of it.”

Another ding later and they’ve back at the hotel, so Burt goes to bed happy that he knows everybody’s whereabouts.

 

Thursday afternoon, Finn heads to Burt’s shop to help out and he can hear Burt muttering about something in his office while he pokes at his phone.

“Finn, that you? Can you come help me fix this?”

“What’s the problem, Burt?” Finn asks.

“This thing keeps going off. All day long, it’s been one darn beep after another! I appreciate that Kurt’s checking in, but is there a way to make it just send me the important ones or something?” Burt presses the touch screen some more. “I don’t need bus stops and subways and all of that.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you can tell it which kind of notifications to send,” Finn says. “You want me to just turn them all off?”

“Nah, I guess not. I want to know he’s okay, and it’s only for a few days. I guess I can deal with it.”

The phone must have heard Burt or something, because it dings again right then. Finn tries hard not to laugh at the comedic timing or whatever, because Burt looks so frustrated and confused.

“Museum of Modern Art,” he says, holding up the phone. “Apparently Kurt got some kind of badge. I dunno what that means.”

“Yeah, nobody really does, Burt,” Finn says.

 

By Friday night, Burt’s grumbling about the phone even more, but he still won’t let Finn turn the notifications off.

“I might miss something important!”

“If you say so, Burt,” Finn says. “You can always just go to the app and check every once in a while or something, you know.”

“I’ll forget to do that, and then what if something happens and I didn’t check it,” Burt says. “What if they check in from an emergency room or a police station?”

“Wouldn’t they just, like, _call_?”

“I don’t know what they’d do, that’s the whole point of having this check-in thing!”

“If you say so,” Finn says, shaking his head. “Just tell me and I’ll turn the notifications off.”

“Uh-uh, it’s fine,” Burt insists. “Just gotta ride it out. Tomorrow probably won’t be so bad.”

 

“So,” Burt says, once Finn climbs into the passenger seat of Burt’s work truck after dropping Casey’s future car off at the painting place. “What’d I tell you? It’s been pretty quiet with the check-ins this morning.”

“Hey, that’s good. Kurt had his other thing today, right?”

“Yeah, he had the singing part today. Checked in at Marymount Manhattan at 9:27 am.”

A little while before lunch, Burt’s phone dings and then makes the different ding that means he’s gotten a text. “Kurt says he thinks it went really well,” Burt calls out to Finn.

“Awesome! Tell him I said good job, ok?”

“Will do!”

Not that long after, before Finn’s even finished his lunch, the phone dings again.

“Natural History Museum,” Burt says.

Another few hours pass without Burt’s phone making any noises, then the dinging of a thousand dings begins. Burt’s phone starts going off every few minutes.

“What is he _doing_?” Finn asks.

“I think he’s checking in at every corner,” Burt says. “Bunch of subway stops so far.”

Finn’s phone rings and he’s amused to see that it’s Kurt. They talk for a little while and Finn’s kind of thunderstruck by how _happy_ and relaxed Kurt and Puck both sound. Makes him a little sad, really, that they can’t sound like that here or he can’t be there to see them being happy, but lots of stuff makes Finn sad, so he just does his best to be upbeat with them for the rest of the call.

Not long after they end the call, Burt’s phone dings. “Top of the Rock.”

It dings again. “American Girl Store? What’s that?”

“Store for American girls, maybe? Probably for Hannah,” Finn says.

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” Burt agrees. His phone dings again. “Nintendo World!”

It dings again. “Saks Fifth Avenue.”

A little later, again. “Benetton.”

“Barnes & Noble.”

“Barneys New York.”

“Toys R Us.”

“Disney Store.”

“You know this is insane, right?” Finn says. “Let me turn off your notifications.”

“I might miss something!”

“How do you not _want_ to miss something, Burt? Seriously!” Finn shakes his head.

Burt insists that the notifications stay on, even when the phone dings for Hard Rock Cafe, the New York Public Library, some place called Orvis that made Burt all excited, a Starbucks, and then H&M at around the time Finn and Burt are arriving back at home.

“Guess they had a busy shopping day?” Finn asks.

“Guess so. They’ve gotta be wrapping it up by now, right?” Burt says, sounding hopeful.

“Uh, yeah. I’m sure they are,” Finn says. He’s really not that sure. Burt’s phone dings again. “Oh man, what now?”

“Diesel?” Burt says. “Is that, what? Clothes?”

“No clue,” Finn says. “This is getting out of hand. I’m gonna turn the notifications off.”

“I might miss something!”

“I _wish_ you’d miss something!”

After dinner, Burt’s phone dings for the Apple Store, and then while they’re all watching a movie, it starts dinging at a bunch of subway stops and then again to let them know that Puck and Kurt are back at the hotel.

“Thank god,” Finn says. “I’ve had all the dinging I can take.”

Around thirty minutes pass in blissful ding-less silence before Burt’s phone goes off again. Burt looks at the phone with an odd expression on his face. “Getting kinda late for them to be heading back out, isn’t it?” he says, frowning.

The phone dings again, and again, and again, all subway stops. “Where are they going?” Finn asks.

“I dunno, look those up,” Burt says. “Where are those stops?”

“What’s in Chelsea?” Finn asks. “This last one’s in Chelsea.”

Carole laughs. “You two! Burt, didn’t you tell me you wanted to know where Kurt was?”

“Yeah, but it would be nice if these check-in things came with some kind of explanation,” Burt says. The phone dings again. “Heaven? What’s Heaven? Finn, Google that.”

Finn Googles it. “Uh. It’s, uh.” Why’s Finn got to be the one to explain this to Burt? Uncool. “It’s a club.”

“What do you mean, a club?”

“Like, dancing. It’s a gay dance club.”

“ _What?_ ” Burt does _not_ look happy about that news and Finn sort of wishes he could just sneak upstairs to his room or that he’d told Burt it was an ice cream place. “Does it say how long they’re going to stay?”

“I don’t think Foursquare knows that, Burt. It’s not psychic or whatever.”

Finn stays up late playing Call of Duty and Burt’s still up, staring at the phone, even though Finn’s mom went to bed ages ago. The phone doesn’t ding again until 1:40am and then again at 1:51 when Puck and Kurt check in at the hotel. Burt doesn’t say anything, just grumbles to himself, and doesn’t even say goodnight to Finn as he stomps upstairs to his room.

 

The next day is another flurry of dings and grumbling, but at this point, Burt refuses to turn off the notifications as a matter of principle. Before Finn leaves for rehearsal, there’s been a check-in at some kind of circle something–or–another tour, a couple other shops, and the Grand Slam store. There’s a check-in at the hotel, probably when they go back for suitcases and stuff, and then Finn heads out for rehearsal.

Rehearsal’s a mess, everyone’s still pissy at each other and without Puck and Kurt there, they really can’t do an effective run-through of “Marchin’ On,” anyway. Still, they’re gonna be home before too terribly much longer, and that’s a strong enough motivator to keep Finn smiling through the bullshit and the whining and complaining.

When Finn gets home, though, Burt looks even grumpier. “You hear from Kurt and Puck?” Finn asks.

“Yeah, but not good news. Apparently Atlanta’s having some kind of snowstorm and they’ve canceled a bunch of flights. They’re sleeping at the airport.”

“Well, when are they coming back?”

“Tomorrow, hopefully. They aren’t sure yet about the flight.”

Finn scowls. “Stupid Atlanta,” he mutters. “Ruining everything for everybody.”


End file.
